


The Nurse's Lunch Hour

by selkieskin



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Bullying, Coming Out, Crying, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Homophobia, Homophobic Bullying, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Minor Injuries, Muslim Character, Pre-Slash, School, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Build, Teenage One Direction, Teenagers, dyslexic character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-03-01 01:43:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2754935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selkieskin/pseuds/selkieskin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam is stuck in the Sickbay of his school on his own while the nurse goes out for lunch.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>"If anyone comes in, just get them to sit down on a bed and tell them I'll be back shortly."</i></p><p> </p><p>But when someone else comes in, crying, Liam's protective instinct kicks in, and when he sees who it is it goes further than he could have imagined...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How to tend a wound

**Author's Note:**

> Note: The word 'gay' is used in this in a way that's pretty typical for teenage boys from when I went to school.
> 
> Also, I personally found Wuthering Heights hard going, and I imagine Liam would too (in case there are any literary fanatics reading). No offence.

Liam slipped on the astroturf and immediately froze, clamping down on his lip as he felt his ankle give out under him.

“Man down, man down!” shouted Niall Horan, running towards him. The PE teacher blew the whistle and so everyone ended up crowding round him.

“I'm alright, I'm alright,” said Liam, trying to reassure himself as much as anyone else.

“Here then, pick yourself back up, lad,” said the teacher, matter-of-factly.

Liam stirred and tried, but the moment he dragged it across the ground he felt shooting pains start up in his foot. He stopped again and shook his head.

“Sir, I think he's really hurt,” Louis Tomlinson piped up. The PE teacher simply nodded.

“Alright then. One of you can take him to sickbay.”

Louis offered immediately – he liked PE, but any excuse to skip a lesson was irresistible to him. He was short compared to Liam but he was strong – with his help, Liam managed to get to his feet and hobble off the field.

 

When they knocked on the door to Sickbay, the nurse looked them up and down and tutted, as if Liam had disappointed her by getting hurt.

“What have you done to yourself, then?” she fussed, getting on Liam's other side and helping him sit on one of the beds. “Let's get you sat down... there you are. Now, let's take a look at you hey?”

“He slipped over playing footy in PE,” Louis explained. “I think it's broken or something. We all heard it crack.”

The nurse shushed him in annoyance and set to getting Liam's shoe off and examining his foot. She bent it gently and asked him if it hurt, and what ways it hurt. It was starting to swell up already.

“Well, it's not broken then,” she concluded pointedly. “But I think you have given your ankle a nasty twist. I think the best thing for it is to put it up, get some ice on it and we'll see how you go along with it. I'm about to go off for my lunch, so we'll see how it's looking when I get back. Back to lessons, Louis.”

“Aww! Can't I stay?”

The nurse raised her eyebrows.

“He might need emotional support!” Louis lied, not very convincingly.

“Yeah, pull the other one. Come on with you, back to your class now, wouldn't want to miss your lessons, would you?” she teased, knowing full well that Louis absolutely did want to miss lessons but having too many years of experience to be swayed. Louis scowled, but did as he was told. She had a steely air about her that told him instinctively that it was useless protesting. Liam was secretly impressed she managed it, actually, although it would be a shame to not have company.

Once she'd successfully shooed Louis out, she put some cream on his grazes and helped Liam arrange himself on a bed with his leg rested on a pillow and an ice pack in a towel on top of it.

“Now, don't you move. There's a couple of books to read by your bed if you're bored, and if anyone comes in just get them to sit down on a bed and tell them I'll be back shortly. Plasters are in the cupboard.”

“But I don't read,” Liam said.

“Well, maybe now's a good time to start,” she retorted, unbothered, already shrugging her coat on. “I'll be back in an hour.” She drew the curtain across for Liam's bed and he heard her bustle out of the door.

 

Liam watched the clock he could just about see half of above the curtains for almost 5 minutes, before boredom got the best of him and he turned to the shelf beside him, pulling out the books. They were all laminated, bent, yellowing ex-school-library copies – which is how he knew they'd be terrible: Wuthering Heights; two Shakespeare plays; a book of poems about school (why); a fiction book apparently about a girl petitioning her local council to protect wildlife; science and maths revision guides; a picture book about the tooth fairy for children much younger than anyone who came to secondary school; and, finally, a book about dinosaurs. As the only halfway decent book he could find, Liam picked this one and started flicking through it. He gave up quite quickly on trying to work out the names and just looked at the pictures.

There was a timid knock on the door and he heard it being pushed open.

“Hello? Hello?” said a voice, sounding like it was being spoken through a bust lip. Liam didn't answer. Whatever the nurse had told him, he didn't like speaking to people he didn't know – particularly not when he wasn't able to move like this. He'd been bullied years ago and still didn't have it in him to fully trust people yet. He heard the Sickbay door close and he relaxed, thinking that meant the person had gone. 

Then he heard it.

The person was starting to cry.

Liam listened for a few seconds, the noise getting to him, and then he decided he couldn't hide and pretend he wasn't here any longer. He cleared his throat loudly and the crying stopped abruptly, startled.

“The, er, plasters are in the cupboard?” he squeaked, nervous.

“Who's there?” said the person accusingly, obviously ready to defend themselves. Liam gulped.

“I'm Liam... the, er, nurse says she's gone for lunch and you can wait for her until she gets back.”

The other person was silent for a few moments.

“Thanks,” they said eventually. Liam thought they were probably a boy from their voice. He heard the cupboard creak open, and the person sighed. Not long after, he heard a clatter as something fell to the floor. They swore under their breath.

“Look, er, sorry... Liam, can you help me? I've kind of messed up my hand pretty badly.”

“Yep, of course I can.” Liam swung his legs over the side of the bed without a second thought, wincing as a particularly viscious twinge went through his foot. He knew he'd have to hop. There was no way he could walk on the foot – it kept on swelling bigger and bigger, despite the ice.

He held onto the wall, pulled the curtain aside, and stopped dead.

It was Zayn Malik.

 

Liam had never spoken to Zayn Malik, although he knew who he was. They didn't even have the same classes, because Zayn was in all the clever sets for academic subjects and they hadn't been put in the same groups for non-academic ones.

He knew about him, though. Firstly from the Art Room walls. Everywhere you looked, in all the displays, the best paintings were signed in the corner with a little 'Z. Malik'. Not to mention the dark painting of Batman that was hung in the lunch room – Liam was one of the few kids that actually read comics, even if it was an expensive habit. Batman was his absolute favourite, and even before he knew Zayn's face, he'd fallen in love. He stared at the painting when it first went up, open-mouthed.

“That's sick mate. Do you know who drew that?” he'd asked his table at lunch.

“No,” Niall had replied immediately, mouth full.

“Z. Malik, it says in the corner,” was Harry's contribution. Louis at least had an actual answer.

“That's Zayn Malik. He's in my drama class. Asian guy that's third in the queue there.”

Liam had looked over, and felt a flush building on his cheeks. Not only was there the Batman connection, but Zayn Malik was... gorgeous. He had big dark eyes, and such a well-put-together face, like a model in a painting himself...

Liam had clamped down quick on that once he realised he was staring. Thinking that way could get people to start up on him again. He couldn't handle that again. He had to protect himself.

Eventually Louis did figure it out, but he was surprisingly nice about it – Liam had been the one that freaked out. Louis was still the only one that knew, and even having one person he trusted know something that damaging about him put Liam on edge. He was still sort of waiting for the people around him to turn on him at any moment. For them to catch onto the things that were wrong with him that his bullies had picked up on in the first place.

After all, that's how it had happened before.

 

Liam's brain took a little while to catch up on what he was seeing. Zayn's eyes were red and puffy and he looked like he was shaking slightly. He'd done something to his hands, mainly his right one, which looked like it was swelling and not really able to grip – which was why the First Aid box and all its contents were now exploded on the floor. Zayn's face looked like it had borne the brunt of whatever had happened though. His lip was split and one of his eyes was almost closed. The other side of his face looked red and angry where it had scraped on the ground, grating away some of the skin.

“I know, it fucking looks bad, so I'd appreciate if you actually help, yeah?” The words were harsh and obviously meant to show that he was dealing with it fine, but the delivery was way off for that effect. He was obviously still on the brink of tears, and his scowl was more embarrassed than anything.

Liam's eyes widened as he realised he'd been staring again. He shook his head to clear it.

“Sorry, sorry.” He started to hop forwards, and Zayn flinched before he actually realised what Liam was doing, and noticed the foot.

“Woah, woah, what's up with your foot?” he asked, frowning.

“Fell over, like an idiot,” Liam said.

“You shouldn't be walking on that,” Zayn replied.

“Well, I'm not walking on it, am I?” Liam was quite proud of that answer, and too proud to show how much it hurt as it kept being moved. He awkwardly lowered himself to the ground by the spilt contents of the First Aid box and sat on the floor, falling over for the last bit, not able to move himself the way he usually would. He gingerly stretched out his leg out of the way, so he wasn't putting weight on it. He covered up his embarrassment by being flippant. “There. Resting it again. See?”

Zayn gave him a wary look, then sank to the floor beside him, wincing. There was obviously some bruising under his uniform that Liam couldn't see. Liam flipped over the box. Together, they started to pick everything up and arrange it back in. There were a few things that had fallen out of the cupboard along with the box, heavy things like a tub of antiseptic cream, that Liam knew already neither of them had a hope in hell of lifting back where it belonged. Liam was pretty sure he was stuck on the floor forever now, but he couldn't bring himself to regret the decision. Zayn Malik was sat so close to him, and they were alone in this room together. Liam had never seen his hands up close, and although one was swollen up and the other had a grazed and rapidly swelling index finger, he couldn't help but think they were the most beautiful hands he'd ever seen. Artist's hands. It was like a dream. A scary dream, but somehow not a bad one.

The silence dragged on, awkwardly.

“Don't think either of us can get that cream back up,” Zayn said eventually, just for something to say.

“I was thinking that.” Liam gathered up his courage, and decided to go for it. “We might as well use it, though. Want me to open it for you?”

“Erm, yeah,” Zayn said. “Sure.”

Liam did so, but it quickly became obvious that a combination of Zayn still shaking and his hands being messed up was going to make that impossible. Liam felt a swell of his protective urge in him, and found himself saying:

“Here. I'll do it.”

Liam got some of the cream on his fingers, and enthusiastically slathered it onto Zayn's face, feeling a rush as they came into contact physically for the first time, Zayn flinching slightly from the cold. He felt himself going red as he dabbed at it, made sure it covered the entirety of the graze. He startled when Zayn let out a snort of laughter through his nose.

“Wow, er. No offense, but are you supposed to put it on this thick?”

Liam's face fell in dismay. Zayn was right, obviously. He was so stupid. How could he have messed this up?

“Oh, I'm sorry, I know it's too much, I'm stupid, can I scrape some off?” Liam blustered.

“No, it's OK, sorry, I just thought it was funny,” said Zayn. “Probably better too thick than too thin, yeah?”

“I can scrape some off if you'd like,” Liam repeated.

“Maybe just a bit then,” Zayn conceded. Liam pushed too hard into the side of Zayn's face at first, not thinking clearly and making him pull away, but then managed to carefully scrape off the top layer so that it looked more like cream and less like a cream pie on his face. He went to put the excess cream back in the tub, but Zayn stopped him.

“No! You can't do that.”

“Why?” asked Liam.

“That's been on my face, you can't put it back for the next person to use. That's unhygenic.”

“Oh,” Liam said, it slowly dawning on him that, of course, he was still being stupid for not having thought of that. He looked at the bin, far too far away. “Do you want this for anything else...?”

“Actually, my arm's pretty scraped up too. You'll have to roll my sleeve up for me though, 'cause I can't.” Zayn held out his arm, on the same side of his face that had got scraped. Liam reached out and carefully pushed it up, revealing that it was scraped along the whole length of his forearm.

Liam hissed in some breath through his teeth upon seeing it. 

“Who did this to you, anyway?” he asked, suddenly feeling a flush of anger that anyone would hurt the boy like this, fingers tightening on Zayn's sleeve.

Zayn looked away.

“Fell,” he said.

 

_“Oh my god, baby, what happened?”_

_His mum towered over him. He was quite young when all this started, maybe about seven or eight. He couldn't face her worry, even at that age. He had lots of practice looking like he was fine, what with all the injections he needed to have each day for his kidney. He didn't want to let himself get upset – couldn't admit that at school, the friends he did have had decided it would be funny to use him as a punching bag. Couldn't face the shame of admitting he was stupid enough that his own friends picked up on it._

_What a gayboy, they'd said. They meant that he was useless, that he was weak, that he did things uselessly._

_“I fell over,” he'd said instead, and started to cry anyway._

 

“I used to end up like this,” Liam found himself saying, knowing that what Zayn had said wasn't true. It was too familiar to him for him to be fooled. “Back at my old school, and primary school. I was always sick, and I couldn't spell, and I was stupid and weak, and... well, what I'm trying to say is, you don't have to lie to me.”

Zayn's eyes met his, searching for truth. Zayn slowly shook his head.

“What, you? Never,” he said disbelievingly, obviously having noticed Liam's muscles and size, apparent in his PE t-shirt and shorts.

“Didn't always look like this,” he confessed. “I wanted to learn to defend myself. So I took up boxing, and running, and made myself a bit more normal. No more singing. I'm alright now.”

“Yeah?” said Zayn.

“Yeah,” said Liam, feeling the slight sting of the lie. He wasn't normal at all. Not by a long way. He was good at sports now, but he did it because he had to survive, not because he enjoyed it. He always felt like he was running away from something. And having Zayn right here in front of him, so beautiful and needing comforting, it was becoming more obvious by the minute that he wasn't normal about that, either. “Sorry.”

“You got good friends, then?” Zayn enquired.

“Yeah,” Liam said, softly. “Yeah, I do.”

Liam finally snapped out of it (he was staring, again) and smeared the cream on his hand onto Zayn's arm. The scrape was long, so he dipped back into the tub for some more, and as he did Zayn spoke up again.

“Do you ever miss singing?” he asked.

“Well, I mean, I still sing in the shower...” Liam joked weakly, but Zayn didn't speak and waited patiently for his real answer. “...Yeah. Sometimes.”

“I like singing, but I've never sang in front of anyone or anything,” Zayn said. “My thing is drawing, painting and stuff. That's why I don't fit in. I don't even like football.”

“But your paintings are amazing!” Liam blurted out, then blushed. “It's true. I've seen them in the art room, and your Batman one in the lunch hall. It's incredible, Zayn. I wish I had a talent like that.”

“Yeah?” Zayn said, also a bit pink from the compliment.

“Yeah, seriously. I...” Liam steeled himself as he always needed to when he was about to reveal something about himself that could make it as blackmail fodder. It was stupid that he still needed to do this, but he hoped Zayn would understand. “...I read comics. Batman's my favourite ever.”

“You read comics?” Zayn said, as if he wasn't able to believe it. “Like, actual comics?”

“Yeah, I do,” Liam said, tensing.

“Sorry, it's just, I can't believe it.” Zayn smiled, the first time he'd properly done so since they'd met. “I've never met anyone in real life who liked comics.”

“Me neither,” Liam confessed. “I hoped you did. I really hoped you did. I don't even tell anyone I like them, usually.” Then something struck him. “Don't do what I did. You've got an amazing talent, and, and, well, you could be the next Stan Lee or something. You've got to keep drawing, Zayn.”

“It wasn't really that,” said Zayn, before clamping his mouth shut as if he'd said something he shouldn't.

“It wasn't?” Liam asked.

“No.”

“Oh.” It became apparent he wasn't going to get any more than that, and Liam looked down at his hand – the scrape on Zayn's arm was covered now, but again, he'd not estimated the amounts right and he had a load left over. “Is there a tissue I can put this in?”

“I've scraped my side, as well,” Zayn said out of the blue, and used his less-injured hand to gently lift up his shirt a little. It was true. It looked like that entire half of his body had come into contact with the ground – if it wasn't for the state of his face, and his hand, Liam might almost have believed the fallen excuse. It looked like he'd been running pretty fast, and then he'd fallen over.

Running from someone?

“I won't ask you to do this,” Zayn said. “It's pretty gay.”

His words shocked Liam out of staring. It was, wasn't it? But before he looked away, he noticed beside the graze a dark bruise was forming from a blunt impact. A shoe, Liam could bet. He knew what that looked like all too well, knew the hallmarks.

“Who did this to you?” he asked again, changing the subject.

“Just... some people I know...” Zayn began to shake once more. Liam hadn't even realised he'd stopped. “They... found out something and reacted badly, that's all. They don't matter any more. I messed up my hand punching them, though.”

Liam's eyes widened.

“How come the other guy's not in Sickbay then?” he asked. Zayn let out a self-deprecating snort through his nose.

“Because I suck at punching, apparently,” he said. “I didn't even know it was possible for your hand to be the crumple zone and the other guy to be fine, but apparently I managed it.”

“Let me guess,” Liam said, “you punched with your thumb inside the fist?”

“Erm, yeah...” Zayn said, and looked up at Liam. “S'that how I managed this, then?”

“Yeah, you learn that in, like, Boxing 101, you can really injure yourself doing that...” Liam peered at the hand, and shook his head. “I could teach you, if you like. Just a few basic things, so you know for next time.”

“There's not going to be a next time if I can help it,” Zayn said, brushing off the offer. “And besides, even if it does happen again, my hands aren't really up to doing this now.”

“No, I know that, I meant...” Liam was panicking. Had he read this wrong? Did Zayn not want to speak to him again? Was he being too annoying? “...that, er, maybe, I could teach you another time, if you want to...?”

“Thanks,” Zayn said, seeming a bit taken aback by Liam's offer. “That could really help, thank you.”

“Like, I always sit at the table under the Batman painting if you ever need to find me, too,” Liam offered in a rush. “If you ever need help or anything. I'm pretty big and strong. If you want.”

“You mean that?” Zayn asked.

“Definitely,” Liam said. “We can talk about comics, too,”

“Oh,” Zayn said, and started welling up. He wiped his eyes furiously on his sleeve. “That would be... I might... I might need some new friends, yeah.”

Liam understood the situation at last, and how horrible it was for Zayn to admit it. He still thought about them and what had happened sometimes, and it still hurt like it was yesterday.

“That's how it happened with me before too,” he admitted. “They were my friends as well.”

Zayn started crying, then, and Liam let him cry without interrupting him for a while, before shuffling closer so Zayn knew he was there, not caring that his foot twinged at the movement. He didn't think they were anywhere near the stage where hugs were acceptable, so he just let him cry until he'd managed to let it out and calm down a bit.

He remembered what that felt like, as well. It still happened sometimes, after the nightmares. It was like losing control of yourself to sadness. Liam had heard that crying was meant to make you feel better. It never had for him – it had just made his head hurt. But it was something you couldn't stop forever. It was something that just had to happen to him, like the injections every day when he was a child. Both of them hurt, but both of them were something he couldn't avoid.

“Sorry,” Zayn said, trying to pull himself together and wiping his eyes as hard as he could with one blackening.

“S'fine,” Liam said. “I'm sure my friends would like to meet you, too, by the way – I've been raving about your Batman painting for so long that they might as well know you already. You're not... you're not alone. There's nothing wrong with you – they're bullying you, you know?”

Zayn bit his lip and shook his head, denying it.

“I know it doesn't feel like it now,” Liam continued, “but it's true. I'll be your friend. My friends'll be your friends. You'll be fine without the sort of people who did something like this to you.”

“It wasn't that bad,” Zayn said, starting to tell the story. “Like, they were saying stuff, and I just couldn't take it any more, so I hit Danny. Of course everyone'd defend their friend, right? So I ran, and I fell, and they all just... jumped on me. That's when I lashed out and did my hand in. I started it,” he admitted, miserable. “I started it and this is my own fault.”

“They still did this, Zayn,” Liam said. “And they started it – they were saying stuff to you first, weren't they?”

“Yeah, but-”

“No buts,” Liam said, and then smiled nervously, aware he'd taken on a parental tone. “Seriously, though, I'm impressed you actually hit one of them. When people used to say stuff to me I'd just stand there and take it. I wish I'd hit them sometimes. And you actually did – I think that's amazing, Zayn.”

“It's not amazing, it was wrong. I could get kicked out for this.”

“Well yeah, but still. That's what I think.”

They were silent again for a bit.

“Thanks,” Zayn mumbled.

“No problem.”

Another silence ensued, with Zayn gingerly prodding the scrape along his side with his less-injured hand. His shirt looked like it had stuck to it, in places.

“You sure you don't want some cream for that?” Liam asked.

“I'm sure. You really wouldn't mind being friends with me?”

“You're joking, right?” Liam's heart was in his throat. “I would love to be friends with you.”

“And your friends, they won't mind?”

“Why would they mind?”

“Well, er...” Zayn swallowed, going pale. “Well. I suppose you'll all hear this anyway. Probably half the school knows by now. Oh, fuck.”

“Knows what?”

Zayn didn't look at him. He looked down instead, face fearful.

“I'm bisexual.”

“I think I'm gay,” was Liam's knee-jerk response, surprising himself, and he froze in shock. Once that had worn off, he started to shake. He also started to process what Zayn had said to him. Could this be really true? Was this really happening? Had they both really said that?

“It's alright,” soothed Zayn, tentatively reaching out a hand to rub his back, as if he wasn't sure he could. “Come on, Liam. It's OK.”

“This is the first time I've told anyone,” he confessed, forcing it out of himself.

“And you told me?” Zayn asked.

“Well, yeah... you told me,” he said. “Um, er, but, so I'm fine with it, but another friend of mine, Louis Tomlinson, he sort of guessed, and he seems fine with it, so it's fine, right?”

“Yeah, it's fine,” said Zayn, kindly not pointing out the way Liam was just repeating that himself. “He's in my drama class y'know, he seems like a nice guy.” Then he looked away, as if he was trying to suppress a laugh, his tongue coming out to lick his lips.

“What?” asked Liam.

“No, sorry, it's just, this is like one of those things that happens in books, isn't it? Like, two people get stuck in a lift or a sickbay or something and end up telling each other their life stories. I never thought this actually happened, mate.”

Liam caught Zayn's eye, and suddenly, it _was_ funny. He let out a bark of laughter, and Zayn sniggered, and then both of them were laughing like they were friends already.

“Well, you started it,” Liam grinned, feeling shaky but good.

“No way! I'd had a shit day, you can't blame me for it,” Zayn shot right back.

“Yeah,” said Liam, the reminder sobering him up. They lapsed into silence again, until Zayn shrugged off whatever thoughts he was having about the people who used to be his friends.

“Right, so we've done the life story thing, and you want to be my friend, yeah, but I'm still pretty worried about what you're doing to your foot.”

“Worth it,” Liam joked, before looking at it and going pale. Without the ice on it it had swelled up to at least twice its normal size. “Oh no...”

“No is right. Can you get up?”

“Yep,” Liam replied. Then he tried to get up. He couldn't work out how to do it while not leaning on his other foot at all. He bit his lip, hard, trying to get through the pain.

“Shit, don't do that, can I help you?” Zayn offered, scared by how Liam's foot was being bent again. “Put your hands on my shoulders and we'll get you up, yeah?”

Liam turned to look at Zayn, and felt a wave of gratitude and more wash over him. He'd never dreamed that Zayn would be kind. He'd never dreamed that he could talk to him and for Zayn not to treat him like he was stupid. He'd never dreamed that Zayn would tell him secrets about himself, and he never dreamed he'd be able to touch him, either.

Even if this messed up his running, he couldn't bring himself to care with Zayn in front of him, looking at him, waiting for Liam to lean on him.

Liam tentatively put his hands on Zayn's shoulders, and Zayn counted them down.

“Right. On one. Three, two, one-” and with one swift movement, Zayn pulled them both up.

And Liam's heart stopped.

He could see the flecks of brown and gold in Zayn's eyes. Zayn was looking right back at him, neither breaking eye contact. The moment seemed to stretch on forever. Liam was conscious of the fact that he could feel Zayn's shirt under his fingers, and the warmth and slenderness of Zayn's shoulder under that. Zayn's hands were on his sides, steadying. He could feel the slight pressure of that gentle touch through his thin PE t-shirt as his ribcage inflated with every breath. Zayn's eyes moved as if he was reading Liam like a book, and Liam was mesmerised by how stunning they were. Then Zayn licked his lips, and that made Liam's gaze move down to them. Even with the split in them, they were pink and perfect, and he really, really wanted to kiss them.

Neither moved, though.

 

It was at that moment that the nurse burst in and she gasped in horror.

“Oh my god, what are you doing!?” she cried. “And you! Have you been fighting? Why are all my supplies on the floor? Liam Payne, back to bed with you, you won't have done your foot one bit of good by being up and about on it, look at it!”

“M'sorry,” they both mumbled, not really capable of moving away from each other without Liam crashing to the ground again.

“Honestly, you silly boys, always messing around in my sickbay. Here, what's happened to your eye? Is that my cream on your face? How have you got it on the floor!?”

They looked at the smear on the floor. Liam realised he must have forgotten about it when they were talking and wiped it on the floor. It did look a bit suspicious being both on Zayn's face and on the floor, actually. They looked at each other and just couldn't help but laugh. The nurse shook her head as if this was just a typical Thursday, and scolded and fussed over both of them, exclaiming over their injuries, eventually calling both their parents to come and pick them up. They exchanged phone numbers, Liam sneakily ripping out a page from the back of the girl-petitioning-the-council book (to Zayn's horrified gasp) to write on when the nurse's back was turned.

“Come and find me at lunch when we're better, yeah?” Liam said as his mum arrived to take him home.

“Yeah, I will, thanks.” Zayn smiled, and looked down, suddenly a bit shy. “And I mean that. Really. Thanks.”

“Same,” said Liam.

Liam smiled the entire rest of that day. He could barely believe it. He touched his fingers to his lips in wonderment.

Yes, everything was going to be fine.


	2. How to throw a punch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I fractured a bone in my foot recently. You can probably tell. This is a bit of a filler chapter, I'm afraid.
> 
> Also, if you're wondering about that obscure throwaway webcomic reference, it's to this: lackadaisycats.com/archive.php

_Are you in school today?_ came a text from an unknown number, waking him up. Liam just blinked looking at it at first, trying to figure out who he knew that spelt like that. Harry?

He sat bolt upright, remembering who it probably was. His heart was beating fast, like he'd been running. He took a few deep breaths and texted back...

_No gotto rest my foot for a couple off days lol you??_

...And as soon as he'd sent it, he looked at it and dropped his head into his hands. How could he sound so stupid even through text? He knew that Zayn was much cleverer than that, and he wished he'd thought of trying to make himself sound smarter. This was just his normal spelling, and even Liam could see that he hadn't noticed the few extra letters on the read-through. His big, clumsy, useless hands always just mushed the letters, but his brain mushed the letters just as much.

_I'm off today, but no such luck for next week. My parents've said I have to go back in on Monday and tell the teachers what happened. Bricking it._

Right. This was it. He had to try with his spelling. He didn't want Zayn to lose respect for him.

_Its OK. Youl be fine._

He stared at that, trying to think of what else he could write without messing it up (and he knew he'd probably have ended up messing up somewhere), and eventually he wasn't able to make head nor tail of it anyway, so he sent it.

Then he panicked. Did that make him sound like he didn't want to talk? There was nothing he wanted more than for Zayn to talk to him. He had to think of a conversation topic.

_So wat did you think about that virus in the water._

He typed hurriedly, but remembering to not use more than one punctuation mark. But he'd typed without thinking again. That didn't make sense.

_In Batman._

There. He'd done it. Not exactly smooth, but it looked like he'd managed without too many English problems. Three messages in a row without a reply was about the limit, right? He wanted to talk, but he didn't want to look desperate.

_Was that the latest issue? I'd not managed to get that one, what happened in it?_

Zayn had replied. Liam felt a shy grin split his face, and adjusted his foot so the pillow was a bit more under it again before settling down more comfortably in his bed for a text chat.

They texted about Batman but then Liam wanted to show Zayn links on the internet so they added each other on Facebook and chatted some more there. Zayn's knowledge of comics rivalled Liam's, and he even read a few series Liam didn't, like New X Men, as well as some online webcomics (which Liam hadn't even heard of as a concept before, so he resolved to give some of them a proper look later). He talked about the plots of some of them, and then started gushing about the art styles, which Liam looked at and agreed with but didn't really understand (1920s old-photograph-style cat-people?) Then Zayn's mum came home and he had to go, but Liam shut his laptop lid and just stared at the ceiling for a bit, tingling all over. 

 

Liam didn't hear from Zayn at all on Saturday, but then on Sunday he received another text.

_Getting a bit scared, to be honest. Is it still OK if I take you up on those boxing lessons?_

Liam could feel himself going red just looking at that text. He still couldn't get far – his foot had got to the stage where all the bruising looked its worst, which he knew meant it was getting towards healing – sure, it was still pretty black, but there were areas that were getting towards green.

Liam was pretty much an expert on bruises.

_Yeah sure man but you ll have too come to me I still am stuck in bed_

_*._

He'd remembered the full stop, even if it wasn't on the right line. That done, Liam put the phone down and looked round his room. It wasn't too bad (he was pretty tidy as teenage boys go) but he could still see some dirty pants on the floor that he absolutely could not let Zayn see. He got up and hobbled and hopped up to them, but then stopped in front of them, stumped. Getting down to the floor without using or bending one foot was harder than he'd have imagined. Again, he overbalanced and ended up sat on the floor. 

He tried a few times to lever himself up, and fell back. However, he eventually managed to get onto his knee (and his foot probably shouldn't have bent that way, but he wasn't focusing on that) and got himself up, clutching the pants in his hand. Success!

He hopped to the wash basket in the hallway (and it was amazing how tired the one leg got when there wasn't another to balance it out), but the noise alerted his mum who came rushing up the stairs, worried.

“What are you doing, love?” she asked. “You don't need to do that by yourself, I'll do it for you.”

“I've got a friend coming over,” Liam said, not really as a response to what his mum said, just because he couldn't contain his excitement.

“You have?” his mum replied in wonderment. Liam had friends now, but them coming over to see him was still pretty rare. “Who?”

Liam thought he probably blushed, but his mum would probably read it as just happiness.

“Well, er, you know that boy from the Sickbay the other day...?”

“What, him?” His mum looked pleased. “He seemed like a lovely boy. And... and I'm sure you'll be very... understanding.”

His mum had obviously cottoned on to the fact that Zayn had looked like he'd been beaten up. She'd seen that too many times in her life as well. She gave a proud smile and reached out to fix his hair with her fingers.

“My beautiful boy,” she smiled.

“Muu-uum,” Liam moaned. “I'm fifteen!”

“What, and I can't call you my beautiful boy any more? What's this boy's name who's coming over, anyway?”

“It's Zayn,” replied Liam.

“And what food does he like?”

“We've not talked about that yet, Mum.”

“Well, everybody likes sausage rolls, don't they? I'll get some on. Oh, I'm so _proud_ of you. But on with you now, get back to bed!”

“Yeah yeah, I'm going,” he said, rolling his eyes affectionately. He knew that his mum knew he was excited, even if she didn't know the full reason why. Even if this was simply a new friend, he'd still be excited, but this was _Zayn Malik_.

He couldn't afford to mess this up. It was one of the best and scariest things that had ever happened to him.

When he got back to the bed, he had a text from Zayn asking his address. He hurriedly typed it out, hoping that Zayn hadn't noticed that Liam had forgotten in his excitement that he needed to actually tell Zayn where he lived.

 

The doorbell rang and Liam itched to get it, frustrated by being trapped in bed. He strained his ears as he heard his mum's footsteps go towards the door.

“Hello! I'm Karen, I'm Liam's mum,” she said, cheerily. Would Zayn think that was uncool? Liam clenched his fist in the covers.

“Hi! I'm Trisha, and this is Zayn,” came a woman's voice, and Liam sighed in relief. He'd thought that maybe Zayn would be too cool to be dropped off by his mum, but luckily, that didn't seem to be the case. “He's a bit embarrassed about how his face looks today, so that's why he looks like this.”

“Muu-uum,” came Zayn's voice.

“Well, our Liam's upstairs in his room. We didn't want to risk him coming downstairs with his poor foot. Why don't you go up, Zayn?”

“Thanks. S'nice to meet you,” Zayn said politely, even though Liam could hear the embarrassment in his voice. Then he heard the footsteps on the stairs.

Did his hair look alright? He'd only checked it in the mirror not long before. He ran his fingers through it again, and then cursed himself. What if it had still looked alright before and he'd just messed it up? Luckily, he was spared any more fiddling with his hair by a knock on the door.

“Liam, is this your room?” Zayn asked through it.

“Yeah,” he said, nervously. Zayn pushed open the door.

He had a big hoody on with the hood up over his face, which was probably what his mum had been talking about, but Liam could still see – his eye had mostly gone properly black, now, but the graze on his face seemed less red and angry than it had before. His hand was now in a brace. He moved gingerly, like he was sore and aching.

Liam's room was pretty boring, and pretty small – bed, chest of drawers, radiator. He had a poster of a Formula One car on the wall. It wasn't cool. Zayn gave the room a quick glance over, and then came over to Liam.

“Can I sit down?” he asked, gesturing to the bed. Liam thought this was a weird question. Where else was there to sit?

“Um, yeah...?” he said.

“Sorry if that sounds weird,” Zayn rushed out. “Um, my sister Doniya freaks out if anyone else sits on her bed so I always feel like I should ask.”

They could both hear their mums chatting away in the doorway, loud and clear. Zayn sat down on the bed opposite Liam and his heart skipped.

This had seemed so easy the other day when there was something he had to do. There was a problem to be solved, someone to be helped, and that was something he could do, it took away his nervousness. This? This was Zayn, sat on his bed, face to face, wanting Liam to talk to him for a bit as well as teaching him something. Something it would be near-impossible to use anyway with his injuries.

“Mums, hey?” said Liam, trying to start a conversation.

“Yeah. My mum insisted on dropping me off – she's kind of spooked at what happened to me so I think she just wanted to check the place out.”

“It's fine, my mum'll probably want to check on us every five minutes. The first thing she asked me about you was what food you liked.”

“She's made food?” Zayn's eyes lit up. “Sick. I'm starving.”

 

They chatted about their mums a bit more, giggling nervously at how mums were (and how they never actually came inside, just hovered in the doorway for about half an hour), when Trisha eventually departed and Liam's mum came up the stairs and poked her head round the door.

“Everything alright, boys?” she chirped.

“Yes,” they chorused.

“Well, I'll just turn the oven back on, I'm heating up some sausage rolls for you. I'll bring them up so you don't have to come down, OK?”

“OK, thanks very much,” said Zayn, politely, after a slight pause.

“And let me know if you need anything else...”

“Mum,” said Liam.

“Alright, alright, you don't want to talk to your own mother. Well, I'll leave you to it. Back up in a few. Have fun!”

“Alright, Mum,” Liam said, hoping she'd leave them to it a bit quicker than she was doing.

She took the hint, and after a last proud smile at them and what could have been an 'aww', pulled the door to behind her and went back downstairs.

Zayn's shoulders had slumped in disappointment.

“What?” asked Liam.

“Sausage rolls... that's pork in them, isn't it?” Zayn said.

“Yeah. Well, maybe. It is usually, isn't it?” Liam was puzzled. “But why.... oh. _Oh._ ”

Zayn was Muslim, of course – that had totally slipped his mind. No pork allowed. He hadn't even thought of it when his mum mentioned sausage rolls. He was an _idiot_.

“Yeah,” said Zayn.

“I can ask her if she'll do something else?” Liam offered.

“No, I can't do that now,” Zayn worried. “I don't want to look like I'm refusing her food, anyway. You can just eat them. It's fine.”

“Oh. Well, we can ask her what's in the sausage rolls, anyway, can't we?” Liam proposed. “I think it's pork in them but it might not be, I can't be sure. What if it's beef or something?”

Zayn snorted through his nose, as if he couldn't believe what Liam had just said.

“I've never heard of Halal beef being in sausage rolls,” he said. “But sure. We'll ask.”

Liam's eyebrows knitted.

“Was that stupid?” he asked, expecting a simple, honest 'yes'.

Instead, Zayn looked at him and picked up on what Liam was really asking. _Do you think_ I'm _stupid?_

“No,” he said, carefully. “You just don't know much about this because you've never had a reason to think about it before, yeah? You're not the only one by a long way. Don't worry about it.”

 

His mum came up a few minutes later, proudly carrying a tray full of sausage rolls.

“Are you still getting on alright?” she beamed.

“Yeah, er... Mum?” Liam said. “Are sausage rolls made with pork, do you think?”

“Yeah, of course.” She stopped and looked at Liam, eyebrows furrowed. “Why?”

“Don't worry about it,” Zayn interrupted, “thanks for the food Mrs., erm...”

“Mrs. Payne, but call me Karen.”

“Er, Karen, it looks great.”

Liam knew that Zayn didn't want to make a fuss, but he couldn't let him go hungry, either.

“What are you-”

“Shh, Liam.” Zayn fixed him with a pointed glare, but Liam turned away.

“Mum, Zayn's Muslim. He can't eat pork. Have we got anything else he can eat?”

His mum flushed, shocked at the faux pas, and Zayn looked just as embarrassed in turn. They agreed she could make him cheese sandwiches while Zayn apologised for causing trouble and when his mum swept out of the room, she left the tray of sausage rolls behind.

Liam looked at them, not wanting to eat them in front of Zayn if it was something he couldn't eat. They sat there, growing colder by the minute, their smell invading the room.

His heart sank. It had all gone wrong so quickly.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“Not your fault,” he said, but Liam didn't think he was telling the truth. 

 

Liam's mum came back quite quickly with the cheese sandwiches, and seeing that the sausage rolls were untouched, swept them away. She asked them again if they were getting on alright. Liam said yes. She obviously really wanted to stay and watch them talk, but she did finally leave. When they heard her footsteps going down the stairs they both unwound just a little.

Zayn picked up a sandwich.

“You don't think I've offended her, do you?” he asked.

“No,” Liam said, feeling like he was lying. His mum had looked disappointed, and he knew that it was important to her – as it was important to him – that Zayn's visit went well. She would be mortified that she'd done something to make him feel uncomfortable. “It's, um, more important that you can actually eat food, yeah?”

That last part at least, Liam thought was true.

They just ate for a bit in awkward silence.

“So, erm,” Zayn said. “Boxing?”

“Right!” Liam exclaimed through a mouth full of sandwich. He winced at himself for being disgusting, and gulped down a lump of some less-than-optimally-chewed cheese sandwich – he could feel it going down, dragging hard and painful down his food pipe.

“Y'alright?” asked Zayn, noticing.

“Yeah, fine,” Liam croaked, although he could feel that he was going slightly red from it. He decided the best way was to ignore it. “So, first, you had your thumb inside the fist last time, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you've learned the hard way that that's not how you do it. A proper fist should look like this – thumb outside, it's best to curl it round the bottom, and make sure your wrist lines up straight with the arm bones, like this. That took me ages to learn, that,” he said, demonstrating. “Um.”

Liam was looking at Zayn's hands, and Zayn looked down at them too.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know I won't be able to do all this for now, but I was thinking it might come in handy to know in the future?”

“Er, yeah, not to worry, I'll just show you on me.” Liam thought for a second. “So, probably the best one I can show you is a cross punch. It's probably the most normal one, and pretty good for what it does. So, I'd be standing up with my feet apart...”

Zayn got up from the bed, and did just that. Liam thought he looked the part, actually – he had a grim, concentrated expression, a black eye and split lip, a bandage on one hand and a brace on the other... if it wasn't for that stance. It wasn't quite right. Liam tore his eyes away from the boy's fiercely beautiful profile and concentrated on what he needed to say.

“No, that's a bit too far apart – it's so you keep your balance. Bit more in... should be about where your shoulders are. There.”

“Good?” asked Zayn, checking, looking over.

“Good. And the punch should be from level with your shoulder – that way you get the maximum power into it. Like this,” he demonstrated from the bed, and snorted at himself. “This feels so weird sitting down... Oh yeah – and you should be aiming to make contact with mainly the first two knuckles. Aim for the stomach if you can, heads are hard to aim for if you're just starting. And I think that's everything.”

“Yeah?” Zayn asked, and then sat back down on the bed with a whoomph. “I might have to write that all down to remember it, but yeah. I appreciate it, thanks.”

“It's no good for you right now, though,” Liam said, worried. “How good are you at running?”

“Pretty shit, to be honest.”

“Oh.”

Liam tried to think again. Running was something that you could learn better techniques for, but the main part was practice at it, which Zayn didn't have time for right now. How else could he help him? He could give some practical advice, from experience. He gulped.

“When you... when you're down, and they're kicking you, curl up as best you can and... make sure you cover the back of your head. Concussions can be, um, pretty dangerous, so that's the most important thing.”

“Jesus,” breathed Zayn. “Have you...?”

“Yeah,” Liam said. 

 

He could remember it still – although mostly it was that funny, queasy feeling that came with being concussed. The details were a bit hazy.

He hadn't even minded it that much at the time, to be honest. He felt a dull thud and his head jerk forward as the boot collided with the back of his skull, and then everything suddenly hurt less, was vaguer, not really connected to him. He wasn't sure if he'd actually blacked out or not – he assumed so, because apart from a few vague notions of being on the floor, the next thing he knew was that a teacher came and picked him up, tried to stand him on his feet, but he couldn't really tell where the ground was and he ended up on the floor again.

After that, he went to the hospital, and the doctor made him so scared explaining to his mum and dad the potential effects of concussion that he cried.

It was that incident that made his dad get him boxing lessons for his birthday, even though his birthday was still two weeks away at the time.

 

“D'you think that's gonna happen to me?” Zayn asked quietly, interrupting Liam's thoughts.

Liam opened his mouth, and then closed it again.

He wanted to say something reassuring, but it wouldn't be true. He couldn't lie, not even to the boy opposite him with the worried brown eyes.

“I don't know. Maybe.”

Zayn looked at him right back, their fear for themselves and their future feeding into each other, both knowing what could happen to them. But Liam found himself getting a bit lost in Zayn's eyes and had to look away, scared that he was being weird.

“You can put your hood down if you want, you know,” Liam offered, trying to change the subject.

Zayn looked up at him, then looked away.

“I don't really want my face on show, actually. I look fucking awful.”

“You don't,” said Liam, then swiftly backpedalled away from that, trying to sound more casual. “I mean... I can see it anyway, and I've seen it before, so, er... yeah, I don't mind.”

Zayn didn't answer. He hesitated for a minute, then reached out a hand and flipped his hood down. He winced and tried flattening his hair with his hand, worried the hood had made it stick up.

“It looks fine, mate,” Liam said, and Zayn smiled, caught in the act.

“Sorry. I look a lot better than this usually. I'm not used to people seeing me look bad.”

“You worried about that happening on Monday?”

“Tomorrow, you mean.” Zayn looked sad. His voice went quiet. “Yeah. I'm more worried about the other stuff, of course, but.... yeah. My parents would never let me skip, though.”

“Turn so I can see your eye a minute,” Liam said, interrupting. Zayn looked surprised, but did so, leaning forward a bit so he could see.

Liam's eyes only flickered downwards from the black eye for a second. He was proud of himself for that.

“You're not a fast healer, then. Not gonna lie, it might be another week or two before that even starts to go. You sure you can't beg off school?”

“Why do you say that?” Zayn asked, a bit put out by this news but curious about what Liam had to say.

“Well... I can see here,” he reached up a hand and didn't touch, just hovered his finger above where he meant, “and here, that's still blue. It's been, what, three whole days? If this was me it would be all purple by now. Purple's, like, the darkest stage, but it always starts to fade after that.”

He could feel the heat from Zayn's skin just a few centimetres away from his fingertips. He fought the urge to touch him, but he knew that would hurt. So he slowly lowered his hand and put it back on the bed. Zayn stayed where he was.

“Wow, Liam,” he said. “You really know a lot about this stuff. Do you want to become a doctor or something?”

Liam was totally thrown by the compliment, and pulled a confused face in response, jerking back in defense.

“No, I want to be a fireman, actually. You need to be super-smart to be a doctor, you know?”

“It's pretty smart to know all that about dealing with peoples' wounds,” Zayn said. “Even if you've not learnt it from the best place.”

Liam looked away, biting his lip.

“I'm traumatised enough this first time. I can't imagine what that must have been like for you,” Zayn said, and the softness in his voice was nearly making Liam cry. He needed to keep talking, change the subject, and fast.

“Do they know what happened?” Liam blurted out. “Your mum and dad, I mean.”

Zayn sighed.

“No,” he said. “None of them know, just that someone beat me up for no apparent reason. I... I had wanted to start with my friends first, get some support off them before starting with my family. That worked out fucking horribly. I don't want to tell them right now. I've seen how my, er, old friends took it, and I'm terrified that's going to happen again. But, like with my mum and dad. They're sort of... really important. You know?”

Liam's heart was in his throat. This distraction hadn't really worked for making him feel less emotional.

“I'm your friend,” he reminded Zayn, throat thick.

“Thank god,” he said.

Liam was getting choked up and panicking about it. Zayn noticed, because he moved closer and nudged gently at him. He felt warm, even through the clothing.

“Hey, it's alright babe,” Zayn said softly, pet name rolling naturally off the tongue. Liam's heart-rate quickened for a second and then he realised the boy probably didn't mean anything by it. “I'll be alright. You'll be alright. I can hide out in the library if I need to, yeah? And you've got good friends and boxing skills. School's not forever. We'll be fine, yeah?”

“I can't let anyone know,” Liam got out. “About me. Not yet.”

“Yeah,” responded Zayn, face tightening with anxiety as he remembered his own status on that front. “I get you.”

“Oh. Zayn,” Liam said, “I am so sorry about what's happened for you. No-one should go through that, you know?”

“Yeah...” Zayn said, and then jumped as his phone buzzed. Liam jumped as well, because he hadn't realised just how close they'd been to each other. Zayn leaned back to get his phone out of his pocket, and checked it.

“My mum's outside,” Zayn said, dully, and then his face went dark with frustration. “But I'm... fuck. FUCK,” he all but growled through his teeth, hiding his face in his arms.

“Shh!” Liam said automatically hoping his mum hadn't heard that, even though Zayn obviously didn't need that at that moment in time. Liam cast about for what to do. “Are you-”

“Sorry, Liam, sorry,” Zayn rushed out, pulling his head up and taking a deep breath. He put the hood back up and fiddled with his cast. “And I'm sorry about today. I'm just... _fucking..._ well, _terrified_ about this all to be honest.”

“Yeah, I understand mate,” Liam said, lamely, as Zayn got up and headed for the door, stopping him in his tracks. Zayn regarded him, and Liam felt hot all over as it hit him. It hadn't gone perfectly by any stretch, but he'd got through it – and Zayn didn't seem to hate him. It was a miracle.

“Yeah, you do, don't you?”

That was all he said. He then left the room, leaving a very confused but very lovestruck Liam in his wake.

 

_I think I've spotted which one's your table, the one with Louis on. I don't want to go and talk to them on my own though, so I'm gonna wait until you're back._

Liam sat up, and read and reread the text. He replied.

_Why not?? They are nice ppl honestley they will likee you:)_

_*._

Stupid punctuation marks.

_Just don't really like talking to people on my own. It's fine though, I can wait._

_Reelly? Cuz they culd keep you sayfe are you allright?_

Zayn's next message took a minute or two to come through. It was enough time to look at his own text and cringe – on second thought, he didn't think 'safe' had a 'y' in it. And he'd written 'coz' not 'because'.

_*becose*safe_

_Yeah, like I said I can just keep myself to the library, keep my head down, stay in the corridor between lessons, I'll be fine. Thanks for asking though._

Liam didn't know if that was the end of the conversation. He thought it probably was.

_Anytime man anytime._

Then he remembered to ask:

_Did u telll the techers?? How did that go????_

Because he'd typed it in a rush it was all wrong, he'd typed how he normally would, but before he could go through and correct it, Zayn replied.

_Not told them anything. If I refuse to, they can't force it out of me. I can't tell on them like that, no matter what's happened. Beside that, it's safer this way, right?_

_Yea_

That was all Liam could think to type in response to that before he threw his phone down back on his bed with a frustrated sigh.

He stared angrily at his foot and willed it to get better. Zayn was out there in the school world, where Liam couldn't help him. And if anything got to Liam the most, it was having somebody who needed help when he couldn't do anything. It made him feel restless and slightly sick.


	3. How to not get into trouble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: this is my first time writing a dyslexic character, so if any of you feel the bad spelling is at all overdone, underdone or just plain wrongly done, please do let me know. I'm worried I'm not doing it properly.
> 
> Also, disclaimer: although I'm using the real names of real people, this is of course, using the name only – I'm sure they're all lovely accepting people in reality, this bears no resemblance to them, etc. etc.

“Did you hear? Zayn Malik in our year is _gay_ ,” the girl hissed to the friend next to her as they sat in front of Liam in French. Her friend squealed.

“Oh my god, no way!” she said. “Are you serious!?”

Liam looked determinedly down into his bag as he rummaged to get his book out. He didn't want to hear people gossip about Zayn's sexuality. He didn't really want to be reminded of how they talked about him, and about how they'd talk about Liam, too. They hadn't even got the facts right, but it didn't matter – it was the principle of the thing.

“That's such a waste.”

“I heard Muslim parents kick out their kids for being gay,” said a third girl sagely, rocking her chair onto its back legs to better join in the conversation going on behind her.

“That's just news propaganda, isn't it though?” Girl 1 obviously didn't really like Girl 3.

“Nah, it's not,” she said. “That's seriously what happens. My cousin said it happened to a kid in his school.”

“Nah, not all of them,” Girl 1 replied.

“D'you reckon he has a... has a _boyfriend!?_ ” Girl 2 interjected, practically hyperventilating from the excitement of this prospect, eyes practically popping out of her skull. The other two girls ignored her completely, glaring at each other.

“Callin' me racist?” Girl 3 challenged, steely-eyed.

“Oh my days, I am not calling you racist. But you shouldn't stereotype, yeah? Yeah?”

“Well, we'll just have to wait and find out then, won't we,” she said, affronted. In her eyes was the fire of the challenge, the certainty that she would win one over on Girl 1.

Liam secretly thought it was a bit heartless how they wanted to use whether Zayn got kicked out or not as some sort of betting pool. He shook his head to himself. Girls were scary sometimes.

“Whatever he is, he'd better not fucking come near _me_.” That was said by the guy next to Girl 3, and it sounded like a threat.

Liam shrank down in his seat. He rethought his original conclusion. Boys were scarier.

 

He'd wanted to get back to school quickly, stuck at home with nothing to do but lift weights sitting down and worry about what would happen to Zayn that day, but now that he was here he wished he'd had more days at home. His foot had started to twinge painfully again each time he used it, so he had a legitimate reason, but more than that, he couldn't believe he'd forgotten how it was. Maybe he'd just got good at tuning it out. Maybe now that he'd told someone, the reality of it had hit him all the harder.

He hadn't even seen Zayn yet, but now faced with people the old fears were creeping back. The feeling of being watched. People would talk if he started talking to Zayn. People would assume things. Those were just the facts.

Liam hated himself that he still had to think like that, like other people were an attack that he needed to have a coordinated defence for. He hated that he was already entertaining the notion of asking Zayn to leave it at school and only be his friend in private – that wasn't going to happen, of course, but the thought was there. An intrusive thought that he couldn't quite quiet, even though the right thing to do was the thing he wanted to do, and was obvious and simple.

Liam wished real life was more like the comics sometimes. In real life the good side didn't exist. If real life was a comic book, it would be like non-stop pages of nobody but the townspeople crying out en masse for someone to save them even though heroes didn't really exist.

“Gay!” shouted some Year Seven kid in the corridor, whacking another kid on the head and running away, laughing. The kid who had been hit gasped, offended, and chased after the other, pushing past Liam in his hurry.

Liam just kept his head down, face blank, and got to his next class.

 

Break time was only fifteen minutes. Liam told his friends he was going to the toilet. He locked the door behind him, sat down on the toilet, and stared at the inside of the door until the bell went.

It wasn't technically a lie he'd told. But he knew he was running away.

“That was a fucking long shit, mate,” was Niall's comment when he came out after the bell went. Liam hadn't told any of them about Zayn yet. He didn't know how to. If the whole rest of the school would think something of him becoming friends with Zayn, so might the people he had come to depend on.

Even so, the guilt welled up in the back of his throat.

 _Coward_ , he thought at himself.

 

The next two lessons passed by in a blur, and then it was lunch.

Louis was in his lesson before lunch, so he was all but dragged through the lunch process, not able to get a word in edgeways. (Louis, naturally, went in the queue first.) That was sort of good. It meant he had no get-out clause this time.

He didn't see Zayn at all. At first he was relieved. But as the queue dragged on, thoughts started to occur to him. What if it had happened again? What if Zayn was being hurt somewhere? His muscles tensed automatically.

Louis noticed his lack of concentration and immediately twisted his nipple, dragging his attention back. Liam didn't respond normally, way too tense, instinctively moving to defend himself before aborting the motion halfway. Louis jerked back, shocked.

“Woah, what's up with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Right,” Louis said, disbelieving, then narrowed his eyes. “If you need to be somewhere else, you can go and do what you need to, you know that, right?”

It should have stopped surprising Liam, that Louis could read him so well. He was almost more comfortable being ignored, but sometimes it came in useful.

But this meant he actually had to make a decision.

“Yeah... I, er, oh.”

Louis had finally reached the food part of the queue, and, pushed along by the heaving mob that was the rest of the queue behind them, had no time to talk more. He told the dinner lady his choices, and Liam did the same.

Louis skipped off to join the others at their usual table, while Liam was still taking his food.

“Hey,” came a voice from behind him, on the other side of the cordon. “I was hoping to catch both you and Louis, but I didn't get here fast enough – s'less scary when it's just two people.”

“ _Isn't that the...?_ ” came a gossipy whisper from somewhere nearby.

“ _Fuckin' 'ell-_ ”

“ _Shh!_ ”

“Um, er, hi there, um...” It was official. Liam was panicking. He felt like there was no blood left in his face. He glanced over at his friends' table. They were craning their necks to see what was taking him so long. 

They'd seen. 

He clammed up and couldn't respond.

“Oi, move, dickhead,” said the girl behind him in the queue, giving him a not-so-gentle shove into the world on the other side of the cordon.

“Liam?” Zayn asked. “You alright?”

Liam's mouth flapped open and closed like a goldfish as he scrambled for what to do.

He took too long. Zayn's mouth set in a hard line and responded first.

“S'alright, man,” he deadpanned, quiet, angry, turning away. “Don't worry about it.”

“Wait!” Liam said, and let out a shaky breath. “I'm not... it's just... I'll tell you later, yeah?”

The whispers around them intensified. Liam shouldn't have said that.

“Leemo!” Liam all but went into a defensive stance at the unexpected clap of a hand on his shoulder. “Were you going to ask the inimitable Zayn Malik to join us for lunch, eh?”

“Nah, it's-” started Zayn.

Decision to make. Stay or fold. Stay or fold. Stay?

“Yeah, I was,” Liam stated, looking Zayn in the face to show he was serious. This was what heroes did, right? They had the courage to stand up for what was right. Liam was still terrified, but at least he knew there was no escaping it now – and with the certainty of what he should do came a certain rush as the guilt lifted. He felt like he could breathe easier.

“Serious?”

“Yeah.”

“Alrighty then!” Louis was grinning from ear to ear, and it wasn't an entirely friendly-looking grin, either. Liam gulped – he was going to hear about this later. Louis started to shoo them over towards the table. “C'mon then, Zayn. You know who I am from Drama, but Haz and Nialler are probably pretty new to you.”

Niall burst out laughing, thinking Louis was hilarious as always.

“Those aren't our actual names, by the way,” he said, and waved good-naturedly. “I'm Niall, nice to meet you.”

“M'Harry,” Harry mumbled. His voice had broken early and was startlingly deep. “You're, um, the Batman guy, right?”

Zayn gave a curt nod.

“Yep. I am the Batman guy.”

“Woah, what!?” said Niall, obviously having just caught on, glancing behind him at the picture. “You were the lad that drew that!?”

“Do you pay no attention at all, Niall?” Louis teased, poking him in the side so he squirmed away.

“Um, where's your lunch?” Harry asked.

Liam hadn't even realised, he'd been so busy in a panic himself. 

“S'alright, I was just about to get in the queue.”

They all looked at the queue. It was long. Lunch would be halfway over before Zayn managed to get a tray.

“Here, you just want some of mine?” Liam offered automatically.

“No, it's fine-”

“You can have my fucking apple mate, no way I'd eat that anyway,” Louis interrupted in that strangely insistent way he had.

“I usually give away my dessert anyway, but it can be your turn today,” offered Harry in turn.

“What? You do?” Zayn was confused.

“He's a right weirdo, him, mad for fruit but give him a chocolate mousse and he turns his nose up.” Louis grabbed Zayn's sleeve and dragged him downwards so he had no choice but to either sit down on the bench or end up on the floor. Liam, after a second, sat down next to him. He had faith that Louis would sort everything out. It was that way he just expected everyone to agree with him and do what he said. It worked weirdly well.

“I don't want to be stealing other peoples' food...” Zayn said, still not entirely convinced this was alright.

“We offered,” Harry said.

“Trust me, it's fine,” Liam added, and Zayn turned to look at him, to ascertain whether this was really the truth. He knew and trusted Liam the most out of their little group, so then he turned back to the rest of the group and smiled.

“Well, er, thanks a lot guys, if you're really sure? S'my fault for turning up late, but that's really nice of you, I appreciate it. You can all have some of mine tomorrow.”

“Yeah, we can,” Louis confirmed as if that was that, smirking. Liam offered Zayn his spoon (he never used the spoon anyway), and moved the tray so it was in between them.

When Zayn wasn't looking, Louis kicked Liam in the shin and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. Liam pretended he didn't notice. At least he was only kicked in the leg that didn't hurt – the way his ankle was still throbbing, he thought he might have had an embarrassing reaction had Louis been a few inches to the other side.

Nobody brought up why Zayn had been late. News travelled fast in the school environment, so everybody sort of knew Zayn had something going on. None of them were close enough with Zayn to bring it up, so they kept going with laughing, joking and trying to involve Zayn in their silly conversation. Zayn was quiet, but he was trying.

Liam's heart fluttered even more, seeing that.

Then he noticed Harry was watching his reactions intently as well, and forced himself to look a bit more normal, schooling his face to a neutral expression and looking away.

 

When lunch hour finished, they all went off in separate directions, but Liam caught up with Zayn. Zayn looked round at Liam, surprised. Liam felt like he needed to ask for his own peace of mind.

“Hey, you never did say what kept you so long. Did something happen?”

“No,” Zayn said, going slightly pink with surprise at the concern. “I just smoke, so I usually sneak somewhere for a fag at lunch and break anyway.”

“Oh,” said Liam, not sure what to do with himself. He didn't think he'd spoken to anyone who smoked before, and it threw him a little. It was the sort of thing that the really bad kids did, out by the dustbins under the window of the Tech rooms. “That's cool,” he ventured, trying to sound like it didn't phase him.

He obviously wasn't very convincing because Zayn smiled and shook his head.

“It's really not cool, you know. I started years ago with... with my mates, and now I'm addicted.”

“Gays!” shouted someone from around them, and they both blanched and leaned away.

Liam looked around and couldn't even spot who said it. It might not have even been intended for them, but he couldn't be sure.

The familiar persistent anxiety was starting to creep back into Liam's bones. He needed to act more normal than he did now, stop letting the outside world see him. It was his only defence. He set his jaw to look tougher. He felt the mask slip on a little tighter.

“Seeya,” he said to Zayn, and walked away.

“...Bye,” he heard Zayn reply behind him.

 

_Zayn Malik:  
Hey, can I talk to you?_

The chat box popped up on Liam's Facebook that evening. Liam immediately snapped more awake.

_Liam Payne:  
Shure man whats up._

_Zayn Malik:  
Thanks for looking out for me in school today. I've been having a pretty shit time of it and you talking to me and introducing me to your friends made my day 1000x better._

_Liam Payne:  
No problem man I mean their good peaple so of course they wuld._

Harry popped up a chatbox as well.

_Harry Styles:  
Hey Leemo !! Wassup_

Alright, not Harry then. Or not just Harry, anyway.

_Liam Payne:  
Hey Louis wassupppppppp_

_Harry Styles:  
Ha ha, how did you figure it out ??_

_Liam Payne:  
Just a gess_

There was a pause after that. Liam wasn't sure if they'd messaged him just to say hi. Weird, when Louis messaged him he usually had an agenda.

_Liam Payne:  
Hello????????_

There was another pause. 

_Harry Styles:  
My name is Harry and Ijlkljkkkkkkkkkkkkkkll_

_;l;ll;;;'''''_

_';lkofi jhjdsfo g skdjjjlkiuy76uyt5432_

Liam rolled his eyes. He didn't know why he hadn't just expected it in the first place. Keyboard wars.

Zayn messaged him again, so he ignored the notifications from Louis and Harry and decided to concentrate on him.

_Zayn Malik:  
So how was your day?_

Shit. He'd forgotten that he'd told Zayn he'd talk to him later. He avoided the subject instead.

_Liam Payne:  
Youve finally met my freinds! So bit of a weird day tbh (but good)._

_Zayn Malik:  
Yeah, I know._

Had Liam already said that? He scrolled up and yep, right there he'd basically repeated himself.

_Liam Payne:  
Sorry I did not realize Id alredy said that. Silly me haha_

Liam checked on the other chat box – it helped tamp down the urge to bury his head in his hands.

_Harry Styles:  
kjoooooppop;_

_,m.;l,kl;;.///;l;'d_

_I like pe_

_nss_

_Sorry about that, I've got control of the keyboard again. Lou wanted to know if you're free next Friday_

_f_

Liam was excited. Was he being invited somewhere outside of school?

_Liam Payne:  
Yeppppp_

He switched chat boxes – a notification had come up.

_Zayn Malik:  
Don't worry about it man, it happens sometimes. But you were alright, yeah?_

_Liam Payne:  
Yer I didnt mean to lol u OK thow???_

Notifications were coming through thick and fast on the other chat box, so he switched again, feeling weirdly popular, it rushing to his head a bit.

_Harry Styles:  
fuuugjhg_

_lopelnioikiiiiii_

_kjhg_

_uyhgdrdemni_

_funnnjhjbhvck m_

He mentally shrugged.

_Liam Payne:  
???_

Then he went back to Zayn's chat box again.

_Zayn Malik:  
I don't know. _

_It's weird knowing that everyone knows. I've never been in the spotlight like this, it makes me nervous._

_Liam Payne:  
Yeah I kno that feeling._

_Zayn Malik:  
It's like everyone is watching me all the time, do you know what I mean?_

_Like they can see all my weak points._

Then it said that Zayn was typing something, so he waited for him to finish. He quickly checked the other chat box again, and saw this:

_Harry Styles:  
I likjhhgtf_

_I fhgl_

_i_

_hjgjknhbjhjkjhjkmmlkml,l,';._

_/;.l_

_npp_

_ihgnore th_

_help_

_jhllk;';'.';.'];'.';;,l;]_

_f_

_i like penis_

_NO THAT WAS LOUIS_

_YESSSSSSSS I WIN LOL_

_Lou is a dick';'#_

_Harry wangtsdickckk_

_hgfhj_

_NO_

Liam knew that it was meant to be funny, However, especially considering how he'd been feeling lately, he wasn't really in the mood.

_Liam Payne:  
lol_

Just because he was weak like that. And he knew that they were just messing around.

_Harry Styles:  
Anyway, Lou's home alone a week on Friday. Sleepover and get drunk. You in?_

_Liam Payne:  
I dont drink_

_Harry Styles:  
YOU ARE RUBBISH LIAM_

_That was Louis_

_We know you don't drink (even though you are a bit rubbish for that). You can come and watch us three getting drunk instead. x_

_Liam Payne:  
sounds good_

_Harry Styles:  
Fruit juice for you and fruit juice with vodka for me (:_

He switched back to Zayn's chat box.

_Zayn Malik:  
I don't know why I expected it to be different, actually. I sort of hoped that people would be a bit nicer about it, or at least not openly staring all the time. I mean, for fuck's sake, is this really the first time they've ever met a guy who likes guys too?_

_You still there?_

Liam kicked himself as he realised that he'd been neglecting Zayn's conversation for Harry and Louis' insane ramblings, when Zayn was here pouring his heart out to him. This was Zayn Malik, for goodness' sake.

_Liam Payne:  
Sorry I am here didnt mean ti ignore youu_

It only occurred to him after he typed that that he should have come up with some excuse that didn't make it sound like he really was just ignoring Zayn (and not trying to hide that fact either). Stupid, stupid.

_Zayn Malik:  
You got another convo going on, then?_

_Liam Payne:  
Ye but its just Harry and Loius beng stupid _

_*._

_Zayn Malik:  
Oh. Don't worry about it then._

Shit, shit, shit, shit, _shit_. Alarm bells. Liam needed to reroute this conversation back, fast. 

_Liam Payne:  
You wer the first time id ever met anyone who likes guys too_

_Zayn Malik:  
Really?_

_Liam Payne:  
Yer so I sort of think if I wasnt yor freind Id mite be staring too._

_I think your really brave for what your doing._

_Zayn Malik:  
If I was brave I wouldn't be feeling like I wish I could take it all back like this._

Liam felt a pang in his chest. He was so sorry for the other boy. He could imagine how it felt. 

_Liam Payne:  
Woud you? _

_Zayn Malik:  
I mean, no, I wouldn't, but still..._

_It's weird not having my old life back._

_Like I think I'd still want my friends to know, but how it worked out was so messed up..._

_I'm glad I've told, mostly. But when I'm at school it's so weird and intense and just exhausting, you know?_

_I don't know if I'd still have told..._

_I don't think I'm making much sense, sorry._

_Liam Payne:  
Its fine I dont think Id be makingg much sence either mate tbh_

_But yo make sence to me._

_You missing yore firends then?_

_Zayn Malik:  
You're my friend, too, but yeah._

_I mean, your friends are nice and all but they're your friends, not mine, you know?_

_Liam Payne:  
brb_

Because something had just occurred to him. He went back to the other chat window. 

_Liam Payne:  
Hey is it alrite if Zayn is invited ttoo?????????????_

_Harry Styles:  
I'm pretty sure Louis wouldn't mind, that sounds great (:_

_Liam Payne:  
Not there??_

_Harry Styles:  
Nah, he's gone to the loo_

Switch back. 

_Liam Payne:  
Are you free a week on friday._

_Zayn Malik:  
Not like I have any plans any more, of course I am._

A notification popped up in the other chat window. 

_Harry Styles:  
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHH XD_

That was definitely Louis. Liam didn't answer the way he wanted to because he couldn't without letting Harry know what was going on, and he'd already come out to one person recently – he didn't think he could handle another. 

He also wished Louis was more subtle sometimes, but he doubted that'd ever actually happen. Louis was a force of nature, nothing could be done to help it. 

_Liam Payne:  
does that mean yes_

_Harry Styles:  
sure it does, bring him along !!_

He went to report to Zayn the good news. Hopefully this would cheer him up – Liam wasn't great at typing words (and his spelling was just embarrassing), but practical solutions he could do. 

_Liam Payne:  
Do you want to come to Louises house a week on friday then? For a get tohether / sleep over? To get to know them better?_

Zayn waited a few moments to reply, and then: 

_Zayn Malik:  
Yeah, I really would actually. Thanks._

_What's the plan?_

_Liam Payne:  
Think there gonna get drunk but I dontt drink so I wont get drunk._

_But you can if you wantto._

_Zayn Malik:  
Not ideal for me because I don't drink either, but at least I'll have a companion in soberness. (:_

_Liam Payne:  
Dont youu smoke tho?_

_Zayn Malik:  
Yeah, I do, but I don't drink. Muslim, remember?_

__Did Muslims not drink? Liam had never realised. That was good, though, and actually exciting. Since people had started drinking in secondary school it had always been him alone, not able to drink because of his kidneys, while everyone else his age got smashed. Even though Liam liked being able to keep his wits about him (and sometimes look after other people), it was often a bit isolating. It made him feel even weirder than usual._ _

_Liam Payne:  
Sober buddiesssssssssss (:_

_Zayn Malik:  
Sober buddies it is! (:_

__

__“It's gonna be sick,” Niall was saying, as Zayn and Liam came over with their trays to sit down. “S'been ages since it's been just us four. Sleepover!”_ _

__It was a minute action, but Zayn froze._ _

__“Oh yeah, I forgot to say,” Louis said, clocking the action. “Zayn's our new fifth musketeer, so it's going to be us five, not us four.”_ _

__“Sick,” said Niall, not missing a beat. “We can get you drunk and see what you're really like, eh?”_ _

__“He doesn't drink either,” Liam said, answering for Zayn._ _

__“What! That's an affront to my culture!” Niall gasped, horrified._ _

__“Lay off it, Niall,” Harry said, shoving him and smiling apologetically at Zayn. “You'll scare him off.”_ _

__“Don't worry, I was only joking, mate,” Niall said to Zayn._ _

__“Besides,” Louis continued, “you've not even lived in Ireland since you were 10. This is England. _England._ ” He cupped his hands to yell against Niall's ear. “ENGLAND.” Niall shoved him off, scowling._ _

__“You're Muslim, right?” Harry said, turning to Zayn._ _

__“Yeah,” said Zayn, hackles rising slightly, as if to say _'what of it?_ ' “Yeah, I am.”_ _

__“See?” Louis said, turning back to Niall. “There you go. Religious reasons.”_ _

__“Oh, fuck. Sorry, Zayn,” said Niall, eyes going wide. The thing was, Niall did everything so earnestly and (seemingly) innocently that people could never really get angry at him properly._ _

__“S'alright, I do know you were only joking,” Zayn said. “Don't worry about it.”_ _

__

__“Sorry,” said Liam, catching up to him after lunch. “I didn't think... did I make things awkward?”_ _

__“Nah,” Zayn reassured him, shrugging his bag further onto his shoulder. “To be honest, I'd have had to have broken it to them anyway that they've got a non-drinking Muslim in their midst.”_ _

__“Midst?”_ _

__“Like, in their company.”_ _

__“ _Gay,_ ” someone nearby said, poorly disguised as a cough, and giggles went up from all around them. Zayn's brow furrowed, even as he went slightly pink._ _

__“Right,” Liam said, straightening up subconsciously. “Erm...”_ _

__“See you later?”_ _

__“Right, right. Whatever.”_ _

__

__“All I ask is that you put just a little more effort into your English homework – I'm sure if you do that, you'll see your grades go up and up and up!”_ _

__“Thanks, miss,” Liam said, itching to leave. The English teacher had kept him behind at the end of the lesson to talk to him about how long the essays were meant to be that they were doing for the homework – she didn't even know how much Liam tried on them. How much of a struggle it was for him to get down even the nearly-a-page-long essay he'd done the other night. “I will.”_ _

__“Alright, then, Liam.” She smiled, not getting it at all. “I'll let you get on. Keep working hard!”_ _

__“Bye, miss,” he said, and left._ _

__Out in the corridors, most people had gone home already. When he saw a group of people up ahead looking like they were crowded around someone else, Liam's pace slowed, suspicious._ _

__“Bisexual, actually,” he heard from the throng. Zayn._ _

__“You fucking what?” one of them responded, disgusted, and he heard a thud, like someone had been shoved back into the wall._ _

__His heart leapt to his throat. Now that he looked, he noticed it looked like Zayn's old friends. He all but sprinted over, worried about what he might find, feeling their attention shift to him._ _

__“Hey hey, who's this guy then?”_ _

__As Liam drew closer and they all turned to look he saw that Zayn was fine. Scared, trapped against the wall, but not obviously hurt. Nothing new, anyway. Liam stopped, not sure what to do next._ _

__“What are you doing?” he settled for. A good, firm opener._ _

“What are _you_ doing?” one of them replied incredulously. “Who even are you? Fuck off.” 

__“Not until you tell me what you're doing,” he replied lamely._ _

__“I said fuck off.”_ _

__They all closed ranks around Zayn again, and Liam moved towards them. Before he could get to them, though, one of them – Liam thought it was Ant Riach off the top of his head – turned around lightning-fast and shoved him back, hard._ _

__“Leave him alone,” said Zayn, but he was totally ignored, Ant speaking over him as if he wasn't there._ _

__“You wanna fight, mate?” Ant said, squaring his shoulders and advancing so Liam was forced to step back, and back, and back. “You wanna fight, is that it?”_ _

__And all of Liam's boxing training against punchbags and willing sparring partners with gloves shrivelled to nothing in the face of this. All the remorseless faces turning to him about to hurt him. Someone who wouldn't stop when the whistle went. Someone who'd keep going, and going, and going, until there was nothing left._ _

__Like they'd done to Zayn._ _

__Like they might be about to do to Liam._ _

Liam could feel himself regressing back to how it had been before, and he was helpless. He felt his back hit the wall and he looked down, not able to meet his eye. _Coward, coward, coward_ , he thought. 

__“Thought not,” Ant said, suspicion confirmed, moving back to the group, not bothering to look back, like Liam was dismissed. “You can fuck off now.”_ _

__Liam swallowed. He wanted to do what they said. He hated himself for it, but he really wanted to do what they said. But he couldn't. He wouldn't let himself. Not while Zayn was in danger._ _

__“No.”_ _

__They all turned again and regarded him like he was crazy. Some even shrugged at each other._ _

__“No. I won't. Not until you back away from him.”_ _

__“Oh, go and tell a teacher, Hero.”_ _

__“I mean it,” Liam said._ _

__“Oh come on, are you gay too?” From Danny Riach, Ant's brother, who was the one right by Zayn. The tone was reasonable, a what-are-you-thinking tone that expected you to agree, that Liam had to catch himself before he responded to. Liam knew better._ _

__“Jesus, I bet he fucking is as well,” one of the others responded when he didn't answer._ _

__“No, I'm not.”_ _

__Liam knew that it was cowardly, that it was hiding, but he couldn't think his way out of this situation. He couldn't think his way out of any situation. Still, something broke inside him at the lie. Like he was on his knees already._ _

__“Oh yeah? You sure about that?”_ _

__“One hundred percent.” He didn't look at Zayn's reactions to that, he didn't want to. He focused on the people he was speaking to._ _

__He stared them down, but they just laughed at him._ _

__“Oh my god, I know who this nutter is!”_ _

__Andy Samuels from Liam's primary school. Yep, he definitely knew who Liam was. Who he used to be._ _

“He's Gayboy! _Liam Payne!_ From my primary!” 

Several of them let out a _pfft_ of amazed disbelief, the looks on their faces saying they couldn't believe their luck. For Liam, it was just another of the painful things from his past that this encounter was dredging up. 

__“What, you serious!?”_ _

“That's _classic._ ” 

__“Is that your name?”_ _

__“Yeah, I'm Liam,” Liam replied, head full of white noise._ _

__“Oh my god he admitted it,” one said, practically salivating._ _

__“Not... not that one. I'm Liam, not...”_ _

__They ignored him and all carried on as if he really had admitted it, a chorus of jeers that felt like they were stripping away flesh. A battering ram of noise that meant Liam couldn't move, couldn't think. He shrank further into himself._ _

__“Oh my days! Gayboy and Gayboy!”_ _

“What the fuck, that is _rank..._ ” 

__“You reckon that's why he's limping, eh!?”_ _

__“Aw, mate, I'm gonna be sick-”_ _

__“Lay off him, guys,” Zayn said warningly, and got rattled against the wall by Danny for his troubles. It snapped Liam out of it just a little._ _

__“Shut up, you. Fucking queers.”_ _

__“Hey!” said Liam, moving forward leadenly to protect him. They didn't even pay attention to him because an adult figure appeared at the end of the corridor._ _

__“Shit, it's Mr. Higgins, run,” said one of them, barrelling into the others to make them move._ _

__With a last, low, threatening, “We'll get you later” in Zayn's face from Danny, he was at last released and they all ended up running from Mr. Higgins' shouts, Zayn and Liam included. Neither of them had any good reason to trust teachers. Liam caught hold of Zayn's arm and pulled him down another corridor, so they ran a different way to Zayn's old friends and got outside using a different entrance, Zayn panting from the exertion._ _

__Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, Liam was realising that his ankle was really starting to hurt. He'd run on it, because he'd needed to. He looked at Zayn, who was pale._ _

__“That was my fault, I thought I'd try talking to them. I'm sorry.”_ _

__Liam couldn't respond. He didn't know how to respond. He didn't know what he was going to do with himself. He was useless. And he was weak. And worst of all, he was gay._ _

__“For fuck's sake,” said Zayn, putting a cigarette between his lips and reaching for his lighter. He was pretending that he was just angry, but Liam could clearly see that he was shaking._ _


	4. How to recognise sensory overload

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Originally this and the next chapter were one huge one - a Harry scene happened to me out of nowhere, and made it long, and long story short, I've split it so you can have it sooner. (:
> 
> Warning: Very brief sexual harassment (a bum pinch). At least the next chapter's got some lighthearted bits, holy jeesh.

Liam breathed in, and out. His feet were on the starting blocks, his hands on the ground. He tried to bring his focus back into himself, how he was positioned. Forget the outside world.

_One, two..._

He heard the noise of the starting pistol inside his head, a sharp _crack_ , and he was off.

He was alright for the first few seconds. He breathed and worked through the pain in his foot, but then it started weakening and refusing to support his weight any more. He shut his eyes, hard, and it all went white because of the pain, but he kept going, however slowly.

He staggered over his imaginary finish line, and came to a halting stop.

He was still trapped. He felt like a horse that had been hobbled. He needed to be able to run – needed it like he needed to breathe.

The sun was coming up, pink and orange against the sky. Anyone else could have watched it and enjoyed its beauty, but not Liam. He didn't have the luxury of time. He needed to be better, he needed to be faster, he needed it so he could survive.

He limped back to the starting line and stretched his leg, massaged his foot until he felt like he could cope with the pain again.

He dropped into the starting position, and mentally counted one, two, _crack_.

He didn't make it this time. It wouldn't keep holding his weight, he was about to collapse. He limped to a stop, balancing on the one foot, looking up at the colour streaking the sky, its beauty mocking him.

He felt like he was going to cry.

 

“Are you still limping that badly on it, Liam?” Harry asked, concerned, when he got to school.

“Tried to do a running practice,” Liam admitted. “I know, I know, I shouldn't have.”

“What'd you go and do that for?” Niall asked, furrowing his brow, leaning back to inspect it. “You want it to get better, right?”

“I thought it was better,” Liam lied.

“That's bull,” came Louis' voice as he came towards them all but dragging Zayn along behind him. “I saw you limping on it yesterday.”

“How did you hear from all the way over there?” Liam asked, deflecting.

“I know everything,” Louis said flippantly, as if that was the actual answer that explained everything.

“You alright to be here though?” Harry asked, eyes wide and concerned.

“Yep,” Liam said.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I'm sure,” he repeated, as if he was responding to a lecture. “I've got an ankle brace on it, anyway. Give it a couple more days. It'll be fine.”

The bell rang and they all had to go off to class. Liam felt a soft brush against his arm, and his heart skipped a beat as he saw who it was. Zayn.

Then, the gorgeous boy even drew closer so he wouldn't be overheard. Liam could feel his breath on his ear.

“Mind if I come round to yours tonight, yeah?”

Liam's blood, hot from the closeness, ran a bit cold at that. Of course Zayn would make the connection between what happened and Liam trying to run again. Liam wasn't used to talking about how he felt and justifying his actions, not at all.

Liam couldn't resist those deep brown eyes, though. Zayn was too close for him to think straight. He had to concentrate on keeping his face rigid, so he didn't give anything away. He forced a smile and agreed.

“Alright.”

Some kid was staring at them, wide-eyed. Liam did his best to shut it out. He coughed and left, not looking back.

 

It was later that day that he felt someone pinch his bum as he was in the corridors to his next lesson. When he flinched and whipped round, going red, he saw the group of Zayn's old friends running past, laughing at him.

“He likes that, doesn't he!” shouted one of them, cackling.

Liam never thought of a response. He hadn't defended himself at all. All he could do was stay rigid, and keep it beneath the surface. Hold his head high. Pretend it didn't get to him, even as what he showed on the outside felt more and more like a suit of armour that was being screwed tighter, and tighter, and tighter, until everything ached and he couldn't breathe.

 

He and Zayn started the walk home in silence, both glancing about them to check they weren't being followed, but both hoping the other didn't notice. It was only once there was pretty much no-one around but a small group of Year Sevens that Zayn broke the silence.

“Looks like it's gonna rain,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Liam.

“I've not brought anything with a hood. I hope we get to yours before it starts chucking it down.”

“Right,” said Liam.

“You alright?” Zayn sounded concerned.

“Yep,” Liam replied automatically.

That put an end to their conversation. 

When they got home, they let themselves in, said hi to Liam's mum and went upstairs. Once Zayn had sat down on Liam's bed (and god, how Liam just wanted to curl up on it and not have Zayn there, which was confusing because why would he not want Zayn there? How could Liam, of all people, want to pass up the chance to talk to someone when they needed him to?), he asked again.

“You alright?” asked Zayn.

 _Say no, say no. Tell him all about it,_ was the logical option.

“Yes,” Liam said instead, not feeling able to cope with the conversation.

“You can talk to me if you want. I won't freak out. I... was there, you know?”

“Do you want to talk about it?” And Liam totally didn't mean to, but that came out as angry. “Sorry,” he said immediately, and took some deep breaths. “Do you want to talk about it?” he said, softer.

Zayn looked at him warily. 

“No, it's OK. I don't need to talk about it. I brought some X Men comics in my bag, if you'd like?”

“That'd be nice, yeah.”

They took an issue each and started leafing through them, talking about what happened in them and about the characters and Zayn making some comments about how they were drawn. And Liam tried to be normal, tried to be who he needed to be for Zayn, who he liked, who needed him to just be normal, who needed a friend.

But Liam couldn't make himself unwind from school. He knew that everything was getting to him more than it should. Yes, he needed to be there for Zayn, but he was so sick of talking about it, so sick of thinking about it. It was just exhausting. He was at the end of his tether and just needed to curl up in a ball and pretend all the shit he was dealing with didn't exist for a while.

He sounded like he was going through the motions even to his own ears, and Zayn was frowning.

 _I'm sorry, Zayn,_ he thought.

“They always draw her like her spine could dislocate in three places, but this is something else. Look,” said Zayn, holding up a double-page spread of Rogue.

“Wow, it does, doesn't it?” He couldn't think of anything else to say except that.

Zayn bit his lip, lowering the comic.

“Look, I know I already asked this, but is there anything you want to talk about?”

“I want to talk about whatever you want to talk about.”

“...In that case, I think I might go.”

Liam felt a wave of relief, followed by a second, bigger wave of what felt like a mix of shock, confusion and self-reproach.

“Why?” he asked.

Zayn looked at him carefully.

“Because I think you've had a shit day – hell, a shit _week_ – and I think that actually, me being here isn't helping.”

“But I'm supposed to be helping you,” Liam said, before realising that sounded pathetically whiny even to his own ears.

“Is that how you think of it?” Zayn asked, and Liam didn't even need to respond. “Friends help each other. And right now, I think what'll help you is if I let you just process things on your own.”

“No, don't go, I'll be more normal, just, please-”

“Liam,” Zayn interrupted Liam's pathetic begging. “I understand. Really. When I've been around people too long I just need to go to my room and be on my own for a bit too. I'm just going to go, alright?”

“No, it's just, I'm sorry.”

“No, I'm sorry. I just invited myself round, and you're clearly not in the mood for it.”

“I'm sorry,” Liam repeated again. “I really do like when you come round...”

“Mm,” Zayn hummed noncommittally.

“You don't have to go,” he said again.

“Liam, it's OK. I'm just going to go home, alright?”

When he'd apologised some more and shown Zayn out he went back upstairs and leapt on his pillow, punching it and biting it, only restraining the urge to scream into it because he knew it would bring his mum running. He felt stupid, he knew he'd messed up, and the way Zayn had just left like that, he felt rejected – even if he was the one that had stupidly rejected Zayn. It wasn't enough, it wasn't nearly enough for everything he was feeling, and he pulled and bit a bit too enthusiastically – he heard a rip. It was the pillowcase.

He'd get in trouble for that. He knew his parent's money was tight. His mum would fix it and he'd have a raised seam by his head every night. He fought with himself over whether to sneak and fetch the needle and thread (in a cupboard in the kitchen downstairs) and just do it himself to try and cover it up, but the prospect of talking to his mum overruled that plan. He turned his pillow over to hide the rip, then put his earphones in and blasted music in his ears.

It still wasn't quite enough, so he got on the floor (at an awkward angle because of the short earbud wire connected to his laptop) and started doing press-ups on the one foot (crossing the hurt one over the back), thinking things over.

That had gone about as badly as it possibly could.

And it had all gone wrong because of Liam.

Liam felt very far from being a hero at that moment. Good people didn't push away people who needed them. They didn't act weird and be unhelpful and say stupid things that just made other people want to get away from them. They protected the weak, they'd win in a fight, and even if they didn't, they'd still put up a good fight.

And Liam couldn't. 

He didn't even know what he did all this training for if every time he was faced with a situation like the other day he'd react by hiding his face and not being able to use it.

“Knock knock!” said his mother instead of knocking as she pushed open his door and swept in without waiting for a response. “Oh. Did Zayn leave already?”

“Yep,” Liam grunted. _Already._

“Did he not want to stay for tea? You know he's welcome any time, baby.”

“Yep,” Liam grunted again, just needing for her to leave and get out of his space.

“Liam?” his mum asked, coming further towards him. “Are you alright, baby?”

“GET OUT!” he suddenly snapped, and his mother jumped back, hurt. To his shock, Liam realised he was sobbing. “GET OUT, GET _OUT_ , JUST LEAVE ME ALONE-”

He got up and chased her out of the room, slamming the door behind him and leaning his back against it so she couldn't come in again, crying his eyes out and wiping his face so hard it felt like he was gouging at it. Like he'd done when he was a child.

“Liam? Liam, my baby boy, what's wrong?” his mum kept asking shakily through the door, until she finally went away and Liam started to get a hold of himself a bit better.

He knew that she'd just come up to tell him that tea was ready – he could smell it wafting up the stairs, shepherd's pie – and hear the table being set over the hushed tones of his parents talking about him. He felt so guilty about what he'd done. He knew he couldn't stay in this room forever, knew he had to get back to normality at some point, so once he'd calmed down enough that he felt he could, he opened his door and went downstairs again.

“I'm sorry,” he said to his parents, who whipped around to look at him as he entered the kitchen. “Just a bad day, that's all. Please don't ask.”

At the table, his parents asked him what was wrong until he cried again, but he still couldn't bring himself to tell them anything. He just wouldn't do it, no matter how many times they asked and pleaded with him, and he could see that he'd made his mum cry and the worried looks his parents were exchanging over his head. Instead, he just let them hold him for a while (which just felt like he was doing it for them rather than him again, tolerating their touch rather than liking it) and felt the anger build at how useless he was, how he couldn't do anything but hurt and worry people and lie to them.

 

He talked to Zayn the next day at school, and tried to slip back to normal. Well, normal-with-Zayn-around, at least. He couldn't relax with everyone watching him, and that didn't just mean the whispers and passing comments in the corridor, which were only getting worse.

He couldn't let loose at all. He couldn't make himself fun to be around, no matter how bad he knew that was for his future with his friends. It was too much effort. Everyone was starting to notice that Liam really wasn't fun at all, and their eyes watched him, worried, but getting more distant, and more distant, as they bothered to talk to him less and less, and there was nothing Liam could do.

 

Liam turned up to school still limping badly the next day, and the next. He knew he wasn't doing himself any good, but he needed to run. He couldn't stay still, couldn't stay tied down by his foot. Couldn't risk losing his fitness and not being able to get away next time. He couldn't sleep at night for feeling like he needed to run, so every morning, early, he gave into his urges and left the house when it was still barely light to practise, treading softly so he didn't wake his parents and alert them to what was going on.

On the fourth day, Harry showed up.

“Oh my god,” he heard from behind him, and turned to see Harry break into a run towards him. His ankle was already at the giving-way stage and he'd only have made his case worse by trying to leave, so he stood still until Harry got to him.

“Liam,” Harry said, and it barely cut through the robot-like state he'd needed to slip into to cope with the pain. “Liam, what have you been doing to yourself? Don't you _know...?_ Come on, let's go over there and sit down, alright? Lean on me, here you go.”

Harry's arm came round his waist and gripped him firmly, pulling him away from the where he'd been practising. He'd picked this place because it wasn't too far from school, and because it was secluded by trees and barely used – an area of concrete outside a children's play area in disrepair. He wasn't sure how Harry had found him. Still, now Harry wanted him to go and sit down - there was a lone bench at the side that he meant.

Once Harry made sure Liam was sat down, he sat down beside him and let out a rattling sigh, concerned.

“Do you need to put that up?” he asked, gesturing to the ankle.

“S'fine,” said Liam through gritted teeth.

“Well, no, it's clearly not fine. It's been getting less fine over the past few days and you've seemed pretty shut down as well. You sure you don't need anything for it?”

Liam was quiet for a second.

“It'll be fine,” he reiterated.

“OK, OK.” Harry scuffed his feet against the ground for something to focus on, pigeon-toed as usual. “Look, Liam, we've all been worried about how you've been acting, and I just need to ask... did something happen?”

“No,” Liam responded, his automatic response as always being to cover up and pretend he was fine.

“Hey,” Harry said softly in response. “Hey. Whatever it is, we won't think any less of you, yeah? Did something happen?”

“...Yes.”

“I thought it might. You've been so...” Harry bit his lip. “Sorry. Go on. What happened?”

Liam's heart-rate quickened with fear even at the memory. He didn't want to admit anything to Harry, or to anyone else, for that matter. It would be like telling them that he was stupid, that he was weak, that he was everything they'd always said he was in real life. The fantasy of his having friends would be broken.

When he didn't seem to be answering, Harry went for prompts instead.

“Was it something to do with Zayn?”

“Yeah,” Liam said. “What...?”

“He's been acting a bit off too – not like you have, but... he keeps looking around like he's waiting for someone to jump him all the time when he thinks we're not looking. Like, more than before.”

“Yeah,” Liam said. “Yeah. He, um... he tried talking to his old friends, the other day.”

Harry swore.

“I heard they're the ones that... the first time...”

“Yeah, those are the same guys. I just saw that he was surrounded, so I went to help him, but I...”

Liam looked helplessly at his hands, not able to finish the rest of the sentence. Not able to admit how useless he was to anyone else. That was a secret that hurt so much he just couldn't share it, not with anyone.

“Listen, Liam,” Harry was saying. “How many of them were there?”

“Um...” Liam mentally tallied it up. “Like... seven?” Maybe more. Probably more. But it wasn't something that Liam was proud of, so he happily downplayed it.

“Did they hurt you?”

“No.”

“What did they do?”

“They just, er...” Liam's grip tightened on the bench, “...got in my face, called me names and stuff. Nothing bad.”

“Liam, hey,” Harry said, scooting closer and pressing his side up against Liam in reassurance. “I'm really proud to call you my friend, you know that?”

“...What?” asked Liam.

“You do know, don't you, that no-one could have expected you to win against seven guys, but you went to help Zayn anyway. And that makes me really happy that you've taken him under your wing, especially after... especially after he's just come out, you know?”

“But I-” Liam protested. That wasn't how it had happened. That wasn't it at all.

“Honestly Liam, you and your stupid hero complex. Champion of the weak. Look, you may have all the muscles and everything, but you're not _literally Superman_. If I went against seven guys and didn't one hundred percent triumph, would you judge me for it the same way you're judging yourself for it?”

“It's different.” Liam wasn't telling Harry the full truth, so Harry didn't really know what he was talking about. Liam definitely hadn't triumphed, because he hadn't even fought.

“No, it's not. It's really not. Liam, mate...” Harry nudged him with his elbow, affectionately. “You've got to start being kinder to yourself, right?”

“Yeah,” Liam said, not genuinely agreeing, just saying what he knew Harry wanted to hear. He realised that Harry wasn't really paying attention anyway, though, as he kept on talking at a quite fast pace compared to his usually slow speed.

“Because I mean, you used to get bullied, right? So you know how it feels. I know too, by the way – I was pretty girly when I was little, and most of my friends were girls, so the guys would always call me names and stuff.”

“What, really?” Liam said, surprised. Harry was sometimes a bit awkward and insecure, but he had a way with people that Liam didn't have where he could just get people to like him. Was he bullied? Liam hadn't picked up on that at all.

“Yeah. They were right with some of it, actually, but I never told them that at the time. And with you being so great about Zayn and everything... I feel like it might be about time to tell you, too.”

“What?” said Liam, feeling like that was all he'd been saying this whole conversation, just pulled along with not much of a grasp on what was going on. Harry took a breath in, then out.

“I like guys,” and Liam's stomach dropped like he'd been pushed over a cliff. Harry had always been renowned as a bit of a charmer with the ladies, and he'd always believed the rumours about him and this girl, that girl, so-and-so saw them together... but were they really just his friends?

“Haven't you had girlfriends before though?” he asked.

“Er, that's a bit complicated.” Harry scuffed at his feet again. “It's sort of... when I say I like guys, that's true and all but I'm not sure if it's just guys, or what's going on, or what to call it, but I do. Whatever. I'm still trying to figure that one out, but anyway. Do you know why I wanted to tell you it?”

Liam's brain immediately went into panic mode. Could Harry tell that he was gay? Was it obvious? Was it written all over his face, in his movements, could he see it?

 _Gayboy_ , said a voice in his brain, full of all the contempt and disgust he could feel for himself.

“Why?” he said out loud, half-choking on the word.

“Because I feel safe around you. You're a good guy, Liam. You've taken a stand for what's right and you don't judge Zayn for it at all, you've just kept on thinking he's as great as you always have. And... I hope you think the same for me?”

Liam swallowed nervously.

“Yeah, of course I do, mate. Of course.”

Liam wasn't a good guy at all. He felt like such a liar.

“Thanks,” Harry said, and he sounded a bit choked up, like he'd been relieved of a huge weight and it was affecting him emotionally. “I just... wanted you to know. What you're doing means a lot, and not just to Zayn... it means a lot to me, as well.”

 _I'm gay too_ was what Liam knew he was supposed to say at that moment in response, knew if there was ever a time for it that was it, but this time the revelation sputtered and died in his throat, and he just felt like shit. Like this shit was all building up and building up inside him, and as he plastered on a smile and suggested they walk to school he felt like all he needed to do was hit something until it hurt.

Stupid. Stupid.

 

He'd known it was stupid from the start, the running thing, even without Harry telling him so. He knew he wasn't going to get better that way. To get back to full health, to be able to run fast enough again, he needed to rest it. So rest it he would. But he needed something else in the meantime until he was able to run again.

He started waking up early instead to do push-ups, and lift weights, and do sit-ups, and imagine that next time he was faced with those jeering faces he'd be able to stand up for himself and use his strength to keep them away. He forced himself to visualise this happening over and over again, and at his boxing class as well, so that maybe next time when it came to it he could actually do something about it. Without flight, fight was his only option.

Their faces on the punching bags, of everyone who'd done this to him in the first place, he needed them to keep trying to calcify that thing inside him that could mean he could defend himself without fear and do what he needed to to protect himself. To protect Zayn.

He couldn't stop thinking about it, of how he'd been intimidated by them, how he'd wanted to listen to them, how they looked at him like he was crazy, and weird. It was in his head all the time, like it was hovering in front of his eyes everywhere he looked. _Gayboy. Stupid. What are you doing? Thought not._

So he started to exercise when he couldn't sleep at night, too, to shut everything up.

It wasn't a good solution, but it was the only one he could think of. The people around him seemed happier with him, anyway – if he pretended he was fine, he seemed fine. And that was the main thing, really.


	5. How to write a good long essay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Sorry, I know I said the new chapter was coming soon, but then this chapter happened in the middle, and well, it's been a slow time for writing. Sorry again.
> 
> If you're interested in the poem he's doing the homework on, it's 'Limbo' by Edward Kamau Brathwaite. (I hated it in school. I've literally drawn a snail at the bottom of that page in my English Anthology telling me in a speech bubble 'Relax. All is well.' It was meant to comfort me – that's how much I didn't like the poem.)
> 
> Also, Liam starts to experience some dissociation in this chapter – if that's a trigger for you, you have been warned.

“And then an oxbow lake's, er, the one that's cut off from the main part of the river, you see?”

“No,” said Liam, frowning. He knew Harry was only trying to help but this was never going to go in in time for the mini-test tomorrow.

Suddenly Harry was barged to the side by someone going past them, smacking loudly into the lockers and he rubbed his shoulder in pain as the boy who'd barged them – he was big, he looked like he was in the year above at least – turned and gave them a dirty look. Harry and Liam automatically looked away.

“Yeah, that's right, you stay the fuck away from me,” he said, and turned back and kept walking.

“Ouch,” said Harry to Liam. “Who even was that? Why is he trying to pick random fights with people?”

“Yeah...” said Liam, still looking in the direction the boy had vanished in. Harry was right – neither of them recognised him, but Liam didn't know if he was getting stared at in the corridor more than usual or if it was just his paranoia working overtime lately. Either way, he didn't share Harry's blasé assumption that he was picking a fight with just anyone – the school rumour mill was turning, and by now everyone knew what Zayn Malik was, and they knew that he had some new friends as well.

Liam knew that was just like having a big fucking target drawn on their backs.

“Did you know who that was?” Harry asked.

“No,” Liam replied.

“What up, gang!” Louis interrupted in a stupid American accent, jumping on Harry's back – he seemed to have noticed that Liam had been a bit more volatile lately and wisely wasn't sneaking up on him so much any more. Part of Liam was grateful, and part of him missed the social interaction. It was complicated.

“Louis!” Harry complained. “Some random guy just shoved past us and I rammed into the lockers!”

“Oh my god, what a prick!” Louis commiserated. “You alright?”

“Shoulder hurts,” Harry said.

“Aww,” Louis said, before reaching up and messing up his fringe. “Better?”

Harry couldn't help but crack a smile at that one, going slightly pink with pleasure. He shook out his fringe and fixed it again.

“Yup. Totally better.”

“Good. And if you see the prick again, you come and get me, because no-one hurts my little Hazza-man. How about you, Leemo? How's tricks?”

“Tricks?” It was the first time Liam had been actually acknowledged in the whole exchange. He'd noticed that. His reactions were slow and sluggish because he felt like he was drifting further and further away, like he was seeing them through a screen, like his senses were all wrapped in plastic. It terrified him, how slow his reaction times were. He was taking in even less than usual in class, and if someone attacked him, he could never think fast enough to respond. It made him feel vulnerable, but he didn't know how to snap out of it.

“Yeah, how's tricks, it means 'how are you', keep up,” Louis admonished, and didn't even wait for an answer. He turned back to Harry and kept talking. “So, before the wild prick appeared, what was up, gang?”

Harry smiled at the Pokémon reference.

“Just explaining some Geography stuff.”

“Ugh, I can't believe you're discussing Geography when you're not even in the lesson. It's, like, the gayest subject.” Harry blinked but didn't say anything. “Leave that boring shit in a classroom where it belongs. Now come on, I'm starving.”

 

“Well well, what's this?” Niall asked, as Zayn actually joined them in the queue for once. “Given up, mate?”

“Nah, just at school,” Zayn said.

“Is that easy?” Louis asked.

“Well, it's only been a day. I'm fine so far,” he replied.

Why had Zayn suddenly decided to give up smoking at school? Had something happened? Liam felt the familiar twist of worry, and swallowed it down like he always had to. Maybe this was why he was so sluggish – all of this was getting swallowed down and swallowed down, and weighing heaver and heavier on him. He was so tired, like he'd been running for days. But he couldn't run any more, could he, because he was a clumsy idiot who'd managed to fall over nothing and bust it just when he needed it.

“I've been thinking of trying it, you know,” Louis was saying, and Liam dragged his focus back to it, because _what?_

“Oh yeah?” Zayn said, sizing him up.

“Yeah, I was thinking it might help my image. Give me a deep gravelly voice, that sort of thing?”

“What?” Liam finally said, aloud. He was proud of himself for making himself say something, even if it was just a word or two in the conversation.

“Don't,” Harry said. Niall was cracking up laughing.

“Yeah, you'd sound fucking weird with a deep voice,” Niall sniggered.

“Well, you can fuck off too,” Louis sniffed. “This isn't up to a group vote. It's just an idea. Zayn? You up for that?”

“Yeah, sure, man.” Zayn frowned. “But don't do it if you think I could smoke at school again if I had, like, someone with me. I don't wanna put any of you in trouble, yeah?”

“Louis, seriously, don't,” said Harry. “It's really unhealthy for you, you'll get all sorts of health conditions from it-”

“Yeah, I did see the anti-smoking ads too, you know,” Louis said, dismissing him. Harry's eyes just got wider and more concerned.

“No, seriously, listen. You could wreck your body doing this. Promise you won't?”

“Hazza, what...?”

“Just caught sight of what's on offer,” Niall said, turning so he was blocking off Louis and Harry's conversation, as he always did when anyone had a disagreement – either make a joke or change the subject. “Motherfucking beans.”

“What, again?” Zayn said.

“What do you bet it's the same beans from yesterday, left here overnight and reheated?”

Zayn looked slightly ill.

“That's disgusting, Niall.”

“Doesn't make it not true,” he shrugged. “What do you reckon?” he asked Liam.

“Um, erm,” Liam said, having not expected to have to actually participate in the conversation. “I reckon it's the same beans, yeah.”

“Hey, you OK?” Zayn said, and when Liam looked at him he saw that he was frowning with worry. Even through the molasses that he felt surrounding everything, he felt his heart skip a beat.

“Um, fine, yeah.”

“You can say if you're not, you know.” And Liam didn't want to cause Zayn any pain, or make him worry.

“I'm fine,” Liam said, more certainly.

“He's fine,” Niall reiterated for him, smoothing the conversation over. “Probably just a late night, right mate?”

“Right,” said Liam, and although he fought to follow the threads of the conversation for a bit longer, after a while he gave up the ghost and let himself zone out again, only tuning back in enough to add the occasional 'yeah' and to smile along when everyone else was smiling, or laughing.

Maybe the lack of sleep really was getting to him.

Later on that day, when he was walking between classes on his own, two of Zayn's friends were coming down the corridor the opposite way. They made a detour to come and lean over Liam, surround him, laugh at him.

“One hundred percent not gay, right mate?”

“Right,” Liam said, and hurried on past, his heart beating faster. He felt himself imagine punching them, shoving them away, but he didn't. They were only bothering him because he happened to be walking past. He kept his head down, and moved forward on autopilot.

 

That afternoon when he got home, he didn't have boxing practise so he went and lay on his bed. He meant to just go on the internet or something, but he instead just buried himself under the covers and was out like a light.

His mum came and got him for tea, and he woke up and dragged himself downstairs to eat, but every movement felt like a violation. He just needed to sleep. 

He went straight back upstairs afterwards. He had a text on his phone he hadn't heard from earlier, from Louis.

_You alright ?_

He stared at it for a bit, mind blank. But in the end, he just put it back down, ignored it and went back to sleep.

 

He jerked awake to the house in darkness and silence, head throbbing and feeling like he'd been asleep for a hundred years. He checked his phone, saw that it was three in the morning, and that he had that text from Louis that he still hadn't replied to. He couldn't reply to it that late at night, and his first coherent thought since waking was _stupid, stupid._ Why hadn't he done it earlier, when he had just received it and it was still within a reasonable time frame?

Shit. He still had homework he needed to do for tomorrow.

He snuck out into the hallway, stepping over the floorboard that creaked just outside his room and skipping the stairs that creaked as well, fetched his heavy school bag, and brought it back up to his room with him. He accidentally stepped on a step that creaked on the way up and froze, knowing his parents would give him hell if he woke them up so late. He listened for a few moments but his dad's snoring continued uninterrupted. He relaxed, and made it back into his room, closing the door behind him so nobody could see the light. Now, what homework did he have? He checked his planner. English, and Art.

He couldn't face English, not having only just woken up like this. Art it was.

_Draw a machine part that you find in your home._

What did that even mean? Where was he going to find a machine part in his bedroom? Stupid. He should have done this earlier, like he was meant to. Like he was meant to text Louis earlier. He hadn't even done his workout for that evening, either. He still had English to do, and that would take him ages, especially seeing as he really wanted to sleep. He hadn't even been participating in conversations lately. He'd meant to ask Zayn if something had happened, and listen to him, and he hadn't even done that. It hadn't even occurred to him at the time.

Everything overwhelmed him for a little while, and he decided to do his workout there and then because even if he felt like he just needed to sleep, he couldn't sit still with all of his worries going around in his head. He needed to move. And because he was trapped in this little bedroom, that was all he could do without making noise.

He felt his head clear a bit more as he got to the point where his muscles were protesting. Right, what machine parts did he have in his room? He had the lamp, but he needed that on to draw by and that might make it a bit difficult on his eyes. The radiator? That had the temperature-adjusting knob on the side. That would have to do. He wasn't sure if it really counted, and he knew he might get shouted at for getting it wrong, but what could he do?

He did twenty more abdominal crunches, then got out his art book and a pencil that he knew was a bit too blunt, found a pencil sharpener and fixed that (dumping the shavings in his bag, because he didn't have a bin in his room) and started drawing.

And then he rubbed that out and started drawing again.

And again.

The problem was, no matter how many times he tried drawing it and rubbing it out, he couldn't make it look like anything. _Zayn could draw this_ , he thought. Zayn could draw better than this left-handed and blindfolded. And then he started thinking about how beautiful Zayn was, and about how _stupid_ Liam was to like him, because why would Zayn like someone who drew like a brain-damaged monkey? It was getting more and more messed up as he kept rubbing out, smudging on the paper, the imprints of the old lines left behind and making the paper furry with rubbings.

Zayn was kind as well, and thoughful, and intelligent, and he always asked how Liam was and that was something Liam had forgotten to do that day. And the time before that that he'd tried listening to Zayn's problems, he'd been useless and acted like he didn't care about Zayn's problems and even pushed him out, and he did care, because he thought Zayn was the most brilliant person in the world.

Zayn was going to lose all interest in him soon. The same way that all of Liam's friends were losing interest. And Liam didn't have the energy to stop it.

He looked down at his hands with the pencil in them, and his horrible drawing, and Liam's hands just felt like giant lumps of playdough. He imagined Zayn's hands, those slender hands with the smooth skin, slightly lighter underneath than they were on top with the neat nails and how they'd feel in Liam's hands. It was stupid of him, but even imagining holding hands with the boy made something inside him twist and he felt something inside him calm, despite himself.

“Stupid, stupid idiot. You're fine. Stupid,” he muttered angrily at himself under his breath.

He clenched his hands and unclenched them a few times, and ploughed on with the drawing.

At some point he realised partway through that he'd been shading in the wrong place, but he couldn't quite bring himself to rub everything out all over again. It took him a long time, but finally it was done.

It looked nothing like what it was meant to be, of course, but it was done, and that was all that mattered to Liam. He looked at the time on his phone again, and felt the stab of guilt as he remembered the message. He pushed that down and resisted the urge to groan aloud. It was half past four. He still had English homework.

_Write about the use of repetition in the poem 'Limbo' from Cluster 1. Why has the poet repeated the phrase 'Limbo like me'? Do they repeat anything else?_

He felt the panic rising, clawing up his throat. He flipped to the right page, and actually threw the book away from him as he saw the length of the poem in front of him.

That was a whole page, and he didn't even want to think about starting that. How was it quarter to five already? He didn't have very much time until the morning. He needed to keep the teacher happy, because she'd already had to speak to him once about how short his answers were. They'd read it through all together in class but he could barely remember anything about it. 

He took a deep breath, and gathered up his English book again. He was painfully slow at reading it.

 _'And limbo stick is the silence in front of me,'_ was the first line.

Liam stopped, and read it through again to check that it didn't make any sense.

No, that didn't make any sense to him at all.

He didn't manage to get back to sleep at all that night.

 

“Very good effort, Liam. See, you can do it if you try!”

His English teacher was peering over his shoulder at his book, where he'd just ended up writing down literally anything he could think of to make it longer. 

The tiredness had really kicked in for him about half an hour before his alarm, but he still hadn't been done and he knew he had to write a conclusion to the essay. He'd only just finished and managed to sneak back into bed before he heard his parents stirring upstairs, and his alarm had sounded, pounding in his ears.

He forced a smile, so she would go away.

“Thanks, miss.”

 

“You ready?” Harry asked him, as he arrived at his next lesson, Geography. “Woah mate, what happened to you?”

“Just didn't sleep well,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Ready for what?”

“Er, the mini-test about lakes?”

He closed his eyes, and if he was the swearing type, he would have sworn. _Stupid,_ shot his inner voice at him. He should have remembered and read through the previous work. He should have not fallen asleep at a weird time the day before. He should... he needed to sleep. He really needed to sleep, or he'd start crying right there in front of everyone.

“Hey,” said Harry softly, and the kindness in his voice made Liam's eyes well up with tears, to his abject horror. “Hey,” he repeated, throwing an arm over Liam's back and turning him so he was shielded from other people in the line by both Harry and the wall. He started to rub Liam's back comfortingly. “This test counts for literally nothing, you know?”

 _Gayboy,_ his brain supplied, particularly bad at filtering out the obtrusive thoughts now that he was so tired. He really didn't want to be thinking that right now. Harry was just being nice. He didn't deserve it.

“Gayyyyyyy,” someone from the outside echoed, and people laughed, and Harry – to Liam's surprise – whipped round and snapped at them.

“Shut up!” he said, and his grip tightened on Liam's back. The line gave a scandalised _oooooh_ and then someone pushed themselves so they could get a good look at Liam's face.

“Shit, I think he's actually crying,” she said at Liam, and everyone clamoured for a look.

“I'm fine,” Liam said fiercely, but they paid him no attention. Instead, they started to crowd him, to get in his space.

“You actually _crying?_ ”

“Wasn't nothing I said, was it?”

“You're seriously crying!”

 _“Get off!”_ Liam said, too loudly, throwing Harry's arm off him. Harry looked hurt. Liam addressed everyone. “I'm fine, alright? Can you just... leave me alone.”

“What's going on here? You'll disturb all the other lessons on this corridor,” boomed the teacher from the doorway. “Line up properly! Aisha, Becky, get those shirts tucked in! You've got a mini-test today, and as you can't be trusted to behave, you'll be doing it in total silence.”

Everyone groaned and stared at Liam, blaming him. Liam felt his face grow hot under the scrutiny. As they filed in, although they were meant to be quiet, he couldn't help overhearing some of the girls behind him start to speculate to each other on why he'd done that.

The same old thing, really.

They marked each others' tests by passing them to the person two to the side of you – as Liam was sat on the end, his paper ended up pretty far away from him. As the teacher read out the answers, he knew what it would say on his paper. Wrong, wrong and wrong. When it was handed back to him, the people on the way all catching a look at his test sheet, he was right. He'd only got two correct of a possible fifteen.

“It doesn't count for anything, yeah?” Harry said again amongst all the chatter where people were comparing scores. Harry had scored fourteen. Liam miserably folded up his paper and shoved it in his bag, not wanting to have to look at it any more. Liam was used to doing badly on tests, but he didn't usually do _that_ badly.

The girls in front of him rocked back on the two back legs of their chairs, chewing gum and looking at Liam like he was something on the bottom of their shoe.

“So, you seriously gay then?”

“No,” said Liam, feeling the blood leave his face.

“Leave him alone,” Harry scowled, and the girls raised their eyebrows knowingly at each other, and sniggered, turning back. Harry interrupted them. “You're thinking of our friend, Zayn. Doesn't mean we all are.”

“Pfft, yeah, whatever,” one of them said, and Harry threw his hands up in the air, giving up.

“Settle down, class, settle down,” said the teacher. “Hey! Ryan! Facing the front, thank you.”

Harry turned to the back page of his exercise book and started scribbling something. He slid it towards Liam, and Liam read it.

_Don't listen to them. Whatever they're saying, you know it's not true and that's all that matters. I've got your back._

Liam felt bad. Harry had trusted Liam with his secret, and Liam couldn't even tell him his back. If Harry ever found out, he'd be so angry at Liam for keeping this all a secret. And Liam wouldn't even blame him.

 _Thx_ , he wrote below it, trying not to engage with it.

 

“Whassup?”

Louis' face appeared in his view as he headed for the lunch queue, startling him out of his reverie.

“Nothing,” Liam said.

“Hey, did you get my text last night?”

Liam barely resisted the urge to hit the wall and make it hurt. He'd meant to text him back in the morning before school, but he'd forgotten. Useless. Stupid.

“Er... yeah?”

“Yeah? Phone not broken? Then why are you ignoring me, man?” Louis whined.

“I'm sorry,” Liam said. It was all he could say, really.

“Not, don't just be-” Louis stopped himself, exasperated, and looked at Liam. “Don't just be sorry, just don't do it again, yeah? I'm worried about you, mate. I heard what happened in that lesson earlier. You alright?”

“I'm fine,” Liam responded, for what felt like the twentieth time that day.

“You sure?”

“I'm fine,” he repeated again, and how many times did he have to repeat himself before people got the picture? He clenched his fists, and Louis looked warily at him.

“Well, if you say so. If you need to talk about anything, you text me, yeah?” He clapped a hand on Liam's arm, and Liam flinched before he could stop himself. “Jesus, relax. I know I'm strong but I'm not that strong, eh?”

Liam nodded, embarrassed, knowing he was being treated like a little kid that needed looking after because that's how he was feeling at the moment. The whole day had been a write-off from the start. He felt so stupid.

 

They didn't even collect the Art homework in. The teacher didn't even seem to remember they'd had homework. Liam ached for those lost hours of sleep, and put his head down on the desk, shielded by his arms.

 

“Walk with me?” asked Zayn on their way home from a shockingly bad day.

“Yep,” Liam said, a few beats too late. Zayn gave him a look, but didn't comment. They fell into step in silence.

“Looks like it's gonna rain again,” Zayn commented, once they were clear of the main crowd.

“Brilliant,” said Liam angrily.

“Do you... want to talk to me about stuff?”

“No,” said Liam, horrified. He was supposed to be the one Zayn leaned on, not the other way round. He'd messed things up big time. Did it show on his face? Could Zayn see how fucked up Liam was? Everyone had kept asking if he was fine, and now even Zayn felt like he needed to do it. That meant Liam had failed. He couldn't protect Zayn. He couldn't protect anyone.

“Oh. Sorry,” Zayn said, abashed.

The silence between them grew more and more awkward as they walked. Just a few more streets until we split off, Liam thought. Just a few more streets of holding himself together.

“Oh shit,” Zayn said with dread, and Liam looked up and spotted Zayn's friends at the crossroads ahead of them. Zayn grabbed his arm and pulled subtly, having no effect on Liam at all. Liam felt like he was looking at them through a screen. They weren't real. “Let's turn back, Liam. We've got to avoid them. _Now_.”

“No,” said Liam.

“'No'? What the fuck are you talking about?” Zayn hissed, pulling harder. “C'mon!” One of them spotted Zayn and Liam, and he waved, smiling. The others all turned their heads and clocked them, broke into identical smiles and started coming down the street towards them, walking quickly in their much greater numbers. “Oh, shit.”

Zayn had known it would be useless to drag Liam. Zayn had said he was rubbish at running anyway – he'd never outrun them. Liam might be able to, but he'd be leaving Zayn behind. No, this was what he was preparing himself for. He needed a confrontation where he wasn't useless, where he proved himself again and stopped all this once and for all.

“Liam?” Zayn asked, panicking, but then they heard the catcalls from the group.

“Well, if it isn't one-hundred-percent-not-gay and his one-hundred-percent-gay boyfriend,” Danny drawled.

“Fuck off, Danny,” Zayn said.

“Chill out, mate, you know I'm only teasing you,” Danny said, wrong-footing Zayn.

“You're not,” he said.

“What, you've been taking us seriously?” said another one, picking up Danny's lead.

“Pretty seriously, yeah, seeing as you, er, beat me up,” Zayn said, face totally white. He stepped closer to Liam so he was protecting him with his body. Liam looked at Zayn's much smaller, thinner frame and felt a wave of guilt and horror at himself.

 _I've done this_ , he thought. There weren't even any teachers around to step in this time – he and Zayn were on their own in the street. Why was Zayn trying to protect him? It galvanised him into action. He steeled himself and stepped forward, so he was in front of Zayn.

“Wouldn't you, though?” asked one of them rhetorically, ignoring Liam completely.

“Why don't you just leave us alone?” Liam said, and it sounded pathetic even to his own ears.

 _“Ooh, he talks!”_ came the chorus of jeering voices.

“So, it's an 'us', now?” Andy asked, mouth twisted into a sort of disgusted shit-eating grin. “Zayn, man, you're with the fucking _Gayboy?_ You've fallen low.”

“Look, go away. I mean it.”

“Ooh, you 'mean it'? C'mon then, whatcha gonna do?”

Liam dug through the white noise in his head and raised his fists instead. He tried to harden the anger in him and make himself ready to do what was necessary. He'd felt like a robot recently and he needed to use that to follow through. Use it to make these faces, these names, these things that hurt Zayn go away. That was what he was there for.

“Liam,” Zayn called warningly. Zayn's friends burst out laughing, whooping and looking up at Liam because he was the joke.

“Whatcha gonna do, then, eh?” Ant was back, and getting into Liam's personal space, looking Liam up and down in a mockery of checking him out. “You want to get up all close and personal like this, right?”

“Ant, stop it,” Zayn said warningly.

“You'd like that though, wouldn't you? Everyone knows fairies can't throw a punch, anyway.”

And Liam didn't hit like he wanted to, but he shoved, and Ant staggered back a step or two before immediately bouncing back and into Liam, to a barrage of crowd noise from Zayn's friends all around them. Liam was afraid. Ant was shouting in his face, and Liam was pushing back, trying desperately to keep them away from him.

All of a sudden, Zayn's voice broke through the onslaught and suddenly Zayn was between them, shouting at them both.

“Oh my god, Liam, snap out of it!” Liam felt himself keep pushing forward, desperate to win this confrontation and get them away from him. It took him a few seconds to realise... Zayn. Zayn was trying to get him to stop. Zayn's hands were shoving at his chest, unable to move him back but desperately trying to, voice high with fear.

Liam ground to a stop, and felt a fist make contact with his face.

It wasn't a hard punch as punches went, and Liam didn't even think he'd have a bruise there the day after, but it still had the same effect on him it always had.

He felt the old familiar sensation of retreating into himself, always standing there making himself take it, clearing all other thoughts from his head. As if from far away he witnessed them all stepping back to look at the handiwork, mouths round in a thrilled _ooh_ , then Zayn tugging at him while the way was clear, trying to pull him away, pull him in the other direction.

Liam let himself be led by Zayn.

He heard footsteps behind him coming closer, and Zayn tried to shove Liam out of the way as someone from the group ran up behind them, and pinched Liam's bum hard and painfully before running back, to the sound of mocking laughter. Liam whipped round and made himself look as big and threatening as possible, but none of them cared. They'd got the reaction they were after. Still laughing, they started walking in the opposite direction. Liam would have bruise there tomorrow, he could already feel it.

He eventually registered that Zayn was saying something.

“C'mon, Liam, c'mon,” he was repeating, trying to push him backwards so they were also moving further away.

The jeers receded into the distance, and they turned the corner.

Zayn didn't speak. He let go of Liam, and stepped away, keeping a distance from Liam they hadn't had before. They walked along in charged silence for a bit.

“Are you alright?” Liam asked.

“Fucking _great_ , yeah,” Zayn spat.

Liam assumed he was talking about how his friends had acted.

“We should start the lessons again,” Liam said.

“What? What are you talking about?” Zayn asked, and then stopped walking as he realised that Liam meant the self-defence lessons. “I don't think you should- What the _fuck_ was that, Liam?”

“Was what?” Liam asked, confused.

“Since when are you the one that starts it?”

“I didn't start anything, though.”

“Yes, you did.” Zayn nodded incredulously. “It was like... it was like you couldn't even hear me.”

“I couldn't,” Liam confirmed accidentally, and Zayn obviously didn't know what to say to that, and Liam felt a stab of reproach, that familiar done-something-wrong feeling. He'd said too much. He'd shocked Zayn now, because he'd said too much. He needed to keep his mouth shut sometimes. All the time.

When Zayn finally spoke again, his voice was quiet.

“I'm gonna walk with you to your house, and make sure you get home.”

“No, I'll go with you to yours, I'll-”

“Liam,” Zayn said warily. “No. I'll just go with you to yours, and then maybe ask for a lift back off your mum or something, yeah? Let's just... let's just go.”

Zayn started to reach out to Liam, to prompt him to start walking with him, but he stopped before they touched and drew his hand away. He moved back and kept walking, watching Liam to see if he'd follow.

Liam followed.

“I think you should tell your parents what happened,” Zayn said.

“No,” said Liam. He couldn't talk about this.

“Then I think you should tell Louis.”

“No.”

“Anyone?”

“No.”

“Mate,” Zayn said. “I think you need to talk to someone. I can't keep forcing you into situations like this, not seeing what it's doing to you.”

“It's not doing anything,” said Liam.

“What, it's not doing anything?” Zayn repeated, annoyed.

“Right.”

“Right.” Zayn's tone had the finality of someone who'd given up.

They finally got to Liam's house. Liam let himself in and his mum called a greeting, poking her head round the kitchen doorway and beaming when she saw Zayn.

“Zayn! How are you? I'm doing a pasta bake tonight, you can eat that, can't you?”

“Sorry Ms. Payne, but I'm not staying. Liam just walked with me back.”

“Oh.” She looked between the two nervously, trying to work out what had gone on. “Did something happen?”

“Just the usual,” Zayn said wearily. “Sorry to be cheeky, but is it alright if I ask for a lift home?”

“Oh. Oh! Yes, of course dear, that's not cheeky at all. Hang on, I just need to go and get something warmer on,” she said.

“Are you sure? I'm sorry to have to ask,” said Zayn.

“Don't be sorry at all, love, don't be sorry,” she looked pained, like she was feeling what he was feeling with him, and patted his back comfortingly. “Any time you need, just come and ask, OK?”

“OK, thanks,” Zayn said, and with a watery smile she hurried off upstairs to find a cardigan.

“Are you sure you don't want to stay?” Liam asked.

“That depends, do you want to talk about anything?”

“Do you?” Liam deflected.

Zayn sighed.

“Never mind, I'll just go back home. Fuck, man. I'm so sorry.”

Zayn reached towards Liam to just nudge him comfortingly, but Liam's mind was still back in the street and the confrontation. He flinched back, and Zayn drew back, gulping.

“Sorry,” Zayn said.

Liam wanted to say sorry back, he really did, but he knew that if he said anything, it would unleash things he didn't want to let out. The lump in his throat was actually physically painful. Luckily, Liam's mum came back down the stairs, rustling in her coat.

“Right!” she exclaimed. “There we are, then. Have you got everything?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Oh, don't mention it!” she said. “Are you coming with us, Liam?”

“No thanks,” Liam croaked, and his mum noticed. She stopped and gave him a worried look.

“Are you sure? Are you alright?”

“Yeah, fine, Mum.” Liam took control of himself and tried to look more OK. “See you in a few minutes, anyway.”

“Well, alright.” Liam's mum turned back to Zayn, and smiled reassuringly at him. “Come on. Let's get you home.”

When the door was shut and he was alone in the house, Liam dragged himself upstairs, going over everything in his mind.

What had gone wrong? He replayed the incident in his mind. First, he hadn't responded immediately to them being there. He'd thought that running would have been useless at the time, but what if it wouldn't have been? Had he made the wrong choice? Then, they'd come up to them both, and Liam had been so useless that Zayn had had to fight his own battles. And he'd never really taught Zayn how to fight at all. He felt the protective urge welling as he recalled that small, slender body in between the group and Liam. He'd been useless at that, too. Then he'd been telling himself he needed to punch them, but they hadn't started attacking him the way he'd expected them to and he'd always been useless with thinking faster than anyone. He thought about how he'd imagined punching them and chickened out, instead going for a softer option of shoving them because he'd needed to get them away.

In the end, Liam couldn't force himself to punch anyone. He'd tried, he really had.

Maybe the excuse of waiting for them to attack him first was really just that – a get-out clause so he'd never actually follow through with punching anyone in an actual fight, never. Even training up in the boxing ring hadn't got him over that barrier. Waiting for them to attack him first was going to be just as bad as it had been back there, because as soon as it started, it triggered Liam's automatic reaction of shutting down and not retaliating.

Years of training himself to do just that wouldn't be overcome so easily. He needed to try harder.

“Knock knock!” said his mum, sweeping into his room without knocking, startling him. “Zayn's safely home, baby.”

“Mhm.” Liam still didn't want to speak. He wanted to be left alone. His mum's voice was grating on his ears, and felt about a hundred decibels louder than it should.

“By the way, is Zayn going with you to Louis' sleepover tomorrow night? I didn't want to ask in case he wasn't.”

Liam had all but forgotten about the sleepover.

“Yeah, he is.”

His mum beamed.

“Oh, good. They're a nice bunch of lads, do they all get on with Zayn?”

“Yeah, they do,” Liam replied. His mum came and sat on the bed in front of him, and pulled him into a hug.

“You're a good boy, do you know that? You're a good, good boy.”

“Mum, you're squashing me,” Liam complained.

“These people that are bullying Zayn, they're not... they're not doing anything to you too, are they?”

“No, Mum,” Liam said, lying. Luckily, his mum couldn't see his face from the hugging position. She squeezed him tighter.

“Oh, my baby, I know it must be so hard for you to see someone else go through that. And I'm so, so proud of you that you're sticking by him and letting him be your friend. I've told him that he should come round any time he likes.”

“Thanks, Mum.”

Liam heard his mum later talking to his dad about what had happened with Zayn in hushed tones. His dad gave him a lift to boxing practice, watching him carefully. They watched him carefully at the dinner table. Liam hated how nothing was normal any more. How everyone was watching him to see if they could notice him slip up. How many times he'd slipped up already.

That night, when he couldn't sleep from the anxiety tightening around his throat, he tried imagining Zayn's arms around him, thin but strong, telling him he was fine.

But that just meant that instead he remembered what a fuck-up he was being with Zayn, and so he sat up in bed and, exhausted, started to cry.


End file.
